Davion & Davion (Deceased)

[drakensis]

SLS Camino Real, Addicks Orbit
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
4 November 2768

“We’ve done well in liberating six more worlds from Republican forces,” Admiral Brandt advised the council. She directed their attention to the map at the front of the briefing chamber. “With the experience on Addicks and Tigress, Fourth Army was able to reduce Angol’s Castles Brian well ahead of schedule and secure the rimwards flank of our operations.”

“So far, Amaris has restricted himself to probing at the defences of the liberated worlds. It seems that intelligence reports are correct and he’s continuing to direct a significant portion of his reserves towards reinforcing the core worlds and his other frontiers rather than committing to try to defeat our Army Group in isolation.”

“Under the circumstances, the possibility of pressing harder and wheeling up through the centre of the province to liberate the pocket between Tigress and Epsilon Eridani has been put before the strategic staff. After careful thought it’s been decided that we won’t do this, as we’re already leaning on Second Army for garrisons. Capellan behaviour doesn’t lead me to believe that the Fifth Army can be similarly weakened in the Confederation until we have more forces in theatre.”

“As such, our goals for the next year are going to shift focus to the worlds along the Combine border.”

All eyes went to the map and several eyebrows rose. General Chudzik was the one who voiced the obvious concern. “Are you talking about Al Na’ir, admiral?”

“I am,” she agreed unflinchingly. “Until now both we and Amaris have been working on the basis that the SDS systems make worlds effectively unassailable. While exercises have shown the defences to be substantial, that’s never really been put to the test.”

Brandt looked around the room. “We always knew the day would come when we’d need to take a world protected by these systems. Well, the time is here. Aside from liberating Al Na’ir and its resources, this will serve two purposes. Firstly, we’ll have data on how the defences operate under real world conditions that Kerensky will need before we engage the even heavier defences around Terra. Secondly, we’ll shake Amaris up. So far he’s been able to use systems with SDS as bastions to build his defences around. Now we’ll take that confidence away from him.”

“None of the systems we’ve taken are in jump-range of Al Na’ir,” the new commander of Sixth Army noted. “And there are three worlds between us. Will we be bypassing them and using a deep space staging area?”

“No, general.” Brandt zoomed the map in on the region. “The first stage of the operation will be the liberation of Towne, Pokhara and Murchison by your own command, along with the Seventh and Nineteenth Armies. Ideally Murchison will act as a staging area to reach Al Na’ir but if operations there don’t proceed well, either of the other two worlds will serve.”

“As soon as we have a staging area secured, Third Fleet will act as a spearhead to begin operations within the Al Na’ir system. For those unfamiliar, Al Na’ir itself is unterraformed and the cities there are enclosed. The wealth of the system is in mining operations scattered across the entire star system. While Republican forces are believed to only be garrisoning key nodes and defensive structures – including the SDS control centres – there’s a very real possibility we’ll need to secure mining operations across hundreds of asteroids and moons. For this reason, armoured and infantry units will be of limited use in ground operations. General Lucas?”

Jack Lucas rose. “The 123rd Jump Infantry Division has been bringing their exo-atmospheric training up to par over the last month in preparation for this operation, as have all fifteen ‘Mech regiments in the other Divisions of LXIX Corps. They’ll act as our first wave with the balance of Third Army acting as a reserve for operations on Murchison, Pokhara and Towne.”

“Fourth Army is primarily committed to protecting the liberated worlds during these operations but General Baptiste has agreed to reorganise and concentrate her six brigades of jump infantry in reserve. In the event that the 123rd requires further infantry support we can call on them for reinforcements. Hopefully there won’t be any further instances like Ankaa where extra infantry are needed in order to keep the peace.”

“At the least, I think the message that the AFFS aren’t here to invade seems to have sunk in,” Chudzik replied. “The relief convoys from the Suns have helped a great deal and we’re circulating news of damage done by the Rim Worlders on Ozawa as a case in point. Footage of Feddie volunteers working alongside the Ozawans to restore their space ports has done more the pacify Ankaa than another four infantry divisions would have.”

Lucas looked over at Admiral Dokovic, representing Third Fleet. While Brandt had commandeered Fourth Fleet’s flagship as her own after Admiral Marina Akkayev-Cameron had been confirmed as missing – she’d attended her distant cousin’s Christmas celebrations on Terra two years before and not been seen since – the bulk of the Star League Navy’s forces under the Army Group were built around Renata Dokovic’s Third Fleet, reinforced with myriad flotillas assembled from the garrison fleet. “Admiral, will Federated Suns warships be participating in the operation?”

Dokovic shook her head. “Prince Davion has confirmed that his navy are available for such operations, including the first wave if necessary -” If the jump points used were defended then the first wave of attack could be expected to take heavy losses. “- but they don’t have many heavy ships suitable for such operations and we haven’t had the opportunity to train alongside them yet. I’d be open to that in the future but right now I’m assigning the FSN squadron under Admiral Moore to escort Sixth Army’s transports over Pokhara.”

”They won’t be able to handle a major fleet operation if Amaris’ ships at Al Na’ir are sent after them.”

“That’s the same situation as if the Rimmers strike at Murchison or Towne,” she told him matter-of-factly. “We’ll be dividing Nineteenth Fleet between those operations. Eleventh Fleet is stretched to cover the rest of our area of operations so if Amaris does do that we’ll delay the Al Na’ir attack so that Third Fleet can reinforce the threatened system and destroy Amaris’ mobile forces while they’re outside the SDS defences. It would be an ideal opportunity.”

“A little rough on whoever gets bounced,” Baptiste muttered.

Brandt shrugged. “If we can’t take a joke we shouldn’t be doing this. And John Davion was all in favour of pulling Rim Worlders out of their defences so we needn’t expect any protests from him if Moore does draw such an attack.”

“You’re just predisposed to like her because her flagship is a carrier,” Dokovic said drily.

“Do you know how many fighters she has on that thing? A hundred and eighty with a full war load!” Brandt rolled her eyes heavenwards. “Why don’t we have ships like that?”

“We tried. It was one of the more notable debacles in navy history, since the damned thing broke down before it was out of its construction docks. At least a McKenna can defend itself once another warship is in weapon’s range, not to mention carry enough fuel and munitions to supply its fighter wings for a useful amount of time.”

.o0O0o.

SLS Camino Real, Al Na’ir System
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
21 December 2768

“Multiple drive flares, relative direction 179 by 005.”

No fighter pilot could ever be sanguine about someone popping up ‘on their six’ and Joan Brandt was no exception. “Range? Numbers?”

“Correlating data from the fleet… approximately a million kilometres.” The sensor officer studied the data. “Numbers are high, one hundred warships minimum, at least as many dropships.”

The admiral gripped her seat. “And vector?”

“Intercept course. They’re making roughly thirty mps-squared.”

“Admiral Brandt?” her communications chief reported. “Admiral Dokovic for you.”

“Put her through.”

Third Fleet’s commander seemed calm on the screen. “It seems they want to catch us before we reach the inner system,” she noted blandly.

Due to the size of its star and the immense number of asteroids in the Al Na’ir system, many of them in orbits straying significantly above the orbital plane, jumping to transitory points was immensely hazardous and the standard jump points were three weeks from the one more or less habitable world at standard 9.8 mps-squared accelerations.

Moving at three times that made it clear who it was behind them – human crews could only accept that acceleration for a limited time span and very few SLDF ships could attain it, a number that didn’t include the battleships that the two Admirals were aboard. But however many Republican warships were in system, the primary defence of Al Na’ir was the fleet of drone warships and dropships stationed here. Autonomous save for strategic direction, there were no crews aboard that might protest the punishing acceleration.

“The Caspars might be able to hit that acceleration but they can’t keep it up forever. The on-board fuel stores are finite,” Brandt observed thoughtfully. “They must have been lurking behind the jump-point waiting for us to arrive and move away so they could cut us off from retreat.”

The other woman smiled coldly. “We didn’t come here to retreat.”

“Indeed not.” The sang-froid masked a degree of concern though – Third Fleet had only eighty-six warships and slightly more than twice as many assault dropships to escort the transports needed to liberate Al Na’ir. “Their tactics are predictable: after making up ground they’ll match velocity and try to wear down rearmost ships with slashing attacks.”

“I’ll deploy our screen accordingly,” Dokovic confirmed and then, as if waiting for a challenge. “The Camino Real will take up position with the van.”

Brandt’s eyes narrowed but she said nothing. There could be more ships ahead after all and one of the two Admirals should be kept out of the initial clash, even if it galled her to be placed in the position of guard-dog for the glorified ferries carrying Lucas’ ‘Mechs and infantry.

Seeing that Brandt wasn’t going to challenge her, Dokovic nodded. “As most of the drones don’t have capacity to carry fighters; this seems like an ideal situation to use our own. I request authorisation for nuclear payloads.”

“Authorisation confirmed. We’re well clear of civilians, I can think of no better time.”

.o0O0o.

The ten squadrons chosen for the strike were Rapiers, escorted in by an equal number of Hellcat IIs. As they flipped over and used their drives to begin bleeding off Third Fleet’s velocity and close in on the pursuers, dozens more fighters launched from cruisers and destroyers to maintain a combat patrol around the fleet’s formation. After all, they could be wrong about the prospect of drone-fighters.

Brandt watched on a repeater screen as the formations closed in. The Hellcats, with their advanced sensors, sent back a stream of data to refine that gathered already.

One hundred and forty-eight M-5 Caspar drones, exactly half of Al Na’ir’s reported strength, escorted by twice as many of the much smaller M-3 drones. The 4,000 ton drones were operating in squadrons of six and she was uncomfortably aware that they, like the Pentagon-class dropships of her own screen – had a thrust-to-mass ratio comparable to the fighters. And the drones had no crews to suffer accelerations of up to fifty-five mps-squared.

The M-3s showed that, pushing ahead of their capital ships to engage the fighters. That was fine – as much as Brandt wanted to get rid of the destroyer-sized M-5s, she’d agreed with Dokovic that thinning the M-3 numbers would probably be necessary first.

The Hellcats didn’t pull aside for the Rapiers, instead as the drones closed up they went to meet them, replying on their lasers to bleed the drones before the Rapiers made the killing blows.

As the attack developed, Brandt saw the fighters were already beginning to vanish from the display. Some of them briefly showed damage markers, but such cripples were quickly singled out for finishing shots by the computers aboard the drones.

“They’re being slaughtered!” someone exclaimed.

Then the Rapiers reached engagement range and the Hellcats had done their job, drawing fire to the point that only a single Rapier had been destroyed before it could fire.

Visible light and surges of microwave activity marked detonations as Alamo nuclear missiles exploded against the armoured hulls of the M-3s. Freed of their cumbersome external payloads, the Rapiers darted into evasive manoeuvres as they tried to escape the weapon brackets of the surviving drones.

There were far too many of those survivors, Brandt saw. While the remaining Hellcats could detect damage, only a dozen of the M-3s were adrift or had broken up. As many as half of the missiles must have missed, she realised. And worse – even those that succeeded in striking home had more or often than not failed to deliver complete kills.

The fighters clawed for velocity but the M-3 drones clung tenaciously to them. More than thirty Hellcats had been destroyed to get the Rapiers into range but the numbers continued to climb as the M-3s surged after them, ripping into the rear of the tattered formations. Behind them the M-5s were firing their drives and moving in pursuit – not as fast but their capital lasers had far more range than those of their escorts and even a single hit was fatal to the heavy fighters.

“They’re boring in.” Brandt could hear the sick certainty in her own voice. Physics was unforgiving and the Rapiers didn’t have the thrust to escape the pursuit. We didn’t give that enough consideration, she thought. I was too sure our fighters would have the agility advantage, but the drones don’t care that they’re throwing 4,000 ton dropships around like 40 ton fighters, it’s within the drive’s theoretical limits so why wouldn’t they do it?

Behind her, Dokovic’s line squadrons were turning to bring broadsides to bear on the inbound drones. The heavy turreted guns would reap a bloody harvest on the M-3s – she had six McKenna-class battleships (including her own flagship, SLS Iona) and three Cameron-class battlecruisers to anchor the rear-guard of the fleet, along with their escorting frigates and cruisers.

The clock reported that it took a full hour for the two fleets to reach gunnery range. Something deep inside the admiral attested that the clock lied. The agonising slaughter of the Rapiers and those Hellcats that had been too close to the M-3s as they mounted their pursuit seemed to play out interminably for her. Only when the shots at the scattered handful of survivors proved futile – so few, barely six squadrons left out of forty! – did the M-3s cut their drives and form up again as a bloodied but undaunted vanguard to the wall of Caspars behind them.

M-5 drones. Built on the hull frames of Lola-class fast destroyers. Without the need for life support or for the deep cargo holds required for long-range operations the weapon payload could be much heavier than their manned counterparts. And while the ships of Dokovic’s fleet were bound together by morale and training, the M-5s were tied into a single tactical network of super-computers.

First Lord Jonathan Cameron had ordered the creation of the M-series drones to finally devise killers more deadly than even mankind. The M-5 wasn’t the last of the series but it was without doubt the sharpened edge of that intent.

Now they would find out how it measured up.

Sixty-three never-wracking minutes after the fighter strike’s failure, Third Fleet opened fire into the squadrons of M-3 drones. Particle beams, heavy naval autocannon and nuclear warheads ten times more powerful than those a fighter could carry pulverised the dropships.

But moments later the M-5 drones were able to return fire and Renata Dokovic’s heavy ships were forced to switch their targets, leaving the smaller drones to destroyers, corvettes and even Pentagon-class assault dropships in favour of killing the real threat.

The rear of Third Fleet was engulfed in fire, a morass of indicators – friendly and hostile – dropping out of contact as they were destroyed or simply lost sight of in the storm of both intentional jamming and of the microwave pulses of nuclear detonation. Often the ships would be re-acquired moments later… but not always.

Ruthlessly calculating machines met grim and all too human determination…

Air-venting ships bucked under fantastic impacts. Mortally wounded vessels drove closer to fire one last salvo at suicidally close ranges, manned ships no less eager to sell their lives dearly than the drones.

...and after fifteen heart-wrenching moments, some cost-loss ratio was met within the advanced tactical network of the drones and the M-5s changed course and opened the range, still escorted by a fragmentary escorting wave of M-3s.

There were gaping holes in that formation. As the last shots struck or, more often, missed it was possible for the command systems of the Camine Real to calculate the price the SLDF had charged.

Ninety-seven M-5s were pulling away. Mostly undamaged, for the wounded among their fleet had acted as a suicidal rear-guard to let their comrades break contact. Only one hundred and four M-3s still played escort and few of them were as lucky.

“Orders, admiral?”

“Pull the heavy ships into the centre of the formation and push our dropships further out,” Brandt ordered. “I want a three squadron group of interceptors to shadow the drones from outside their weapons range, in case they try to get out of sensor-lock. There could be a resupply base in the asteroids where they can refuel and reload for another round.”

We’ve killed a third of their Caspars but this is only part of their defences and they’ve pulled back for a reason, she thought. And we’ve paid for that. Paid so much.

There had been thirty-one ships in the Twenty-First Strike Squadron and the Thirty-First Battle Squadron that had made up Dokovic’s line. Now only nineteen battered ships remained… and SLS Iona wasn’t one of them.

[drakensis]

FSS Tancredi, Al Na’ir System
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
18 January 2769

It had taken time to put together a relief force and there were only three squadrons in the grandly named Second Fleet. The original Second Fleet hadn’t survived the coup intact and surviving squadrons and divisions had been added to whatever other fleets they were nearest. Still, the designation was available and this was loosely what could be considered the old Second Fleet’s operational area.

Vice Admiral Furnshill’s Forty-Third Interdiction Squadron had been part of the pre-War Fourth Fleet, familiar with patrolling the Combine’s borders. With Al Na’ir positioned on the Hegemony’s border they’d at least visited the system within the last decade. That was more than could be said of the 112th Escort Squadron under Vice Admiral Willingham but they’d a lot of experience in the Hyades Cluster with asteroid-dense systems so Admiral Belleau had detached his own 192nd Escort Squadron to take over the convoy support role and put Willingham under Furnshill’s command.

And then there are us, Kenneth Jones mused.

FSS Tancredi was still Nike Moore’s flagship but a thin fourth band had joined the three broad ones already on her epaulettes after Ozawa, marking promotion to Admiral. In addition to the Arthur and Katherine Davion, two escort divisions had been placed under Moore’s command. Long obsolete, the four cruisers and two destroyers couldn’t possibly keep pace if Tancredi and her division maneuvered hard but there was no faulting the willingness of the crews.

“The enemy’s location is confirmed. We have contact with Admiral Brandt.”

“Understood,” Jones confirmed. He wasn’t privy to the communications yet, possibly not even Admiral Moore was yet, but the fact that contact had been established was enough to know that at least thus far, matters were following the plan. “Give me the plot.”

The tactical display lit up, showing Al Na’ir itself, two ominously crimson clouds of icons indicating the defenders – the remaining drone fleet, predominantly pulled from the jump-point used by Second Fleet to enter the system, and around half their number of manned warships.

Brandt had correctly predicted that the RWN had divided the drones between the two jump-points and brought the un-engaged half to reinforce the inner system once it was clear the half engaging her wouldn’t stop Third Fleet from reaching Al Na’ir. Left unguarded, there had been nothing to stop Second Fleet from arriving except a tiny picket force.

Admiral Furnshill’s solution to that had answered Jones’ questions about the Q-ships that he’d fought in the Ozawa system. The SLN called them Nightwing surveillance ships, pre-League starships equipped with hidden weapons and sensors that had acted as the Hegemony’s eyes and ears in the space ways of their neighbours for generations. As such ships became rarer in the Inner Sphere, the Star League had retired most and the few that remained had been out in the Periphery until lately.

Amaris had apparently pulled some out of the mothballed reserve fleet to supplement his own fleet. It was amusing to turn it back on him – the first hint that the pair of Bonaventure-class corvettes had received that all was not well with the new arrival who’d been using IFF signals obtained from the Ozawa wrecks was when jamming cut them off from Al Na’ir and the SLN commander had taken his tiny ship between the two of them, opening up with broadsides while the two of them dared not return fire in case they hit each other.

“Interesting that the Republican ships are staying clear of the drones.” Jones focused the display on them for a moment. “There are more than expected, too. And is that a Monsoon battleship in the middle of their formation? Amaris is digging every relic he can find out of mothballs.”

“Captain Jones.” Nike Moore’s face popped up on the flag-bridge display. “Admiral Brandt has decided on OpPlan Gradient. Are our fighters ready?”

Jones looked over at Weiss Plains’ position and then nodded. “I hope her ships are ready.”

“I’m assured of clear decks at their end.”

The Commodore winced at the implication of how depleted Third Fleet’s aerospace complement must be. “Then we can launch as soon as the word is given.”

“Do it.”

“Commodore Plains. Launch your birds for OpPlan Gradient.” The situation called for a little formality, in his view.

“Sir.” Plains adjusted her headset and gave the necessary commands. Almost immediately the tiny specs of friendly fighters began forming up ahead of not only the Tancredi but her escorts. Only two squadrons were being held back – the Baron-class destroyers FSS John Lennon and FSS William Shakespeare only carried six fighters each and it had been agreed that integrating them into the wings of other ships could cause confusion so they’d remain as a marginal combat aerospace patrol for the FSN squadron. Otherwise the combined aero-wings of all nine warships and twenty-two dropships were being committed.

Over six hundred Federated Suns fighters began to slowly pull away from their carriers as Moore’s squadron continued to decelerate from their run in-system. Furnshill’s own ships were launching their half of the operation, although even with their own Titan dropships, they couldn’t match the FSN’s contribution.

“All Song-class ships report no problems with the launches,” Plains reported.

“Not bad for their first big outing,” replied Jones. The Song-class was intended as one of a series of home-built battalion transports for the AFFS. Unfortunately production hadn’t been ready for the war and even the ships attached to Moore’s squadron weren’t complete – the desperate need for naval support during the initial liberation efforts had had the first dozen outfitted for carrier operations only and sent to the frontlines.

Some of those now in service were fully fitted out, but this would be the first time in Jones’ experience of using them that they’d managed to launch all their fighters without a catapult failure.

On the display, Third Fleet were manoeuvring to bypass Al Na’ir – OpPlan Gradient explicitly gave up on trying to reclaim the world for now – and the drones were moving to block them. The Rim Worlders were also moving, but much more tentatively.

“Those fellows don’t seem to want to get to grips,” Moore noted as they watched the fleets manoeuvre.

Jones waggled his head from side to side. “They’ve been told how massively superior the Caspars are to manned ships, but Third Fleet’s destroyed three of the drones for every warship they’ve lost. If I was them I’d want to finish grinding down the SLDF before getting to grips with myself.”

“It’s stupid – they’d lose most of their drones even if they won.”

“Better drones than their lives. After the last few weeks, the last thing they’d want to do is engage the SLDF with their current force strength – they don’t even have a two-to-one numerical advantage.”

The truth was that Brandt’s ships and their valiant crews were almost spent. Half her ships had been destroyed in combat or scuttled due to damage. According to her reports, not one warship had avoided damage over the continued clashes since entering Al Na’ir. Few battles had been as large as the first but a succession of smaller attacks had eaten away at ammunition and fuel as much as they had armour and drives. They had one fight left in them… maybe. And by the time the drones behind them had been destroyed, it had been easier to commit to punching through the inner system to the jump point beyond that than it would have been to turn around.

As ever in a large battle, time seemed to crawl. Jones kept one eye on the tactical display and pulled up routine paperwork. Some of it might not matter by the time this encounter was done with but better to have it out of the way. And besides, looking calm was part of his job now.

The defenders were treating the inbound relief force with lordly disdain – they were too far away, after all. Simply by slowing down to reach Al Na’ir in something approaching useful combat speeds they’d ensured they’d arrive well after Third Fleet. No, better to finish off the original enemy and then handle the new arrivals.

One advantage of the drones over manned warships was that unlike the Republican fleet they never neglected to watch all directions. Thus, they were the first to spot the inbound fighters and begin adjusting their screening elements.

It was too late of course, but they did manage it.

Moving well above normal combat speeds, more than a thousand aerospace fighters slashed through the drone’s formation, carefully drawn into position by Brandt’s manoeuvres. Whether it was the fault of the SDS command centre on the surface of Al Na’ir or the drones themselves, their positioning had turned out to be a little predictable.

At this huge closing speed, any shot that hit them was virtually guaranteed to destroy the fighters, but by the same virtue it was almost impossible for such a hit to be scored. And as they crossed the formation, each fighter launched the nuclear missile they were carrying.

Almost eighty percent of the missiles were off-target. Some were fired too soon, others too late. In the vastness of space, some simply didn’t lock onto the ship desired (although due to pilot error or sheer luck, four of the Caspars and one M-3 took direct hits from missiles not intended for them).

But that still meant that two hundred missiles did score hits and their targets were six ships that had subtly different electronic signatures. Third Fleet had had weeks to isolate those distinctions and the data had been sent via their on-board HPGs back to Second Fleet.

Six M-5C drones, carrying the computers that knit the drone fleet into a single cohesive whole, each struck by at least twenty nuclear weapons. In four cases at least one missile punched through the armoured hull and detonated inside the hulls, explosions tearing back outwards with all the subtlety of an axe. One was adrift – hull and weapons largely intact but the massive thruster array at the stern melted to uselessness by multiple warheads. And the last emerged from a cloud of wreckage, under power and fully armed despite the great craters blasted into its armour… but blind and helpless for every sensor and communications array across its hull had been scoured away the fury of the missiles.

Not stopping to see the results of their work, the fighters streaked onwards and only when they were well clear of the drones did they begin applying their thrusters to the vital task of slowing down to rendezvous with Third Fleet. Each fighter had been chosen for this – Sparrowhawks and Centurions that could provide the brutal seventy plus mps-squared delta-v necessary.

“Fourteen losses,” Plains reported quietly.

“Regrettable, but necessary.” Jones studied the screen. There was already raggedness to the formation of the drones. “They’ll still fight, they’ll fight hard. But now they’ll fight as individuals not as a co-ordinated force.”

Admiral Moore nodded. “And we’ll fight too. Admiral Furnshill has ordered her carrier dropships to form on us and to keep the range open. I’ve detached our escort divisions to support her in the main thrust.”

Third Fleet had altered course now, taking advantage of the drone’s disorder. Now they’d slingshot around Al Na’ir’s largest moon while Third Fleet used the planet itself. They’d briefly bracket the Rim Worlders between them and then be directed back outwards towards the jump point.

“After the return pass we’ll need to fall back on conventional strikes,” Jones warned. “Third Fleet can’t give our fighters the needed boost except during the slingshot.”

The M-5 drones were already recognising the changed circumstances, one at a time, and changing course. The M-3 drones escorting them apparently found a different solution and accelerated towards Al Na’ir’s moon to attempt an interception at during the sling-shot. Jones checked the direction of the Caspars and nodded. “Divide and conquer – the M-5 drones know they can’t intercept Brandt now, so they’re changing course to engage Third Fleet instead.”

Moore shrugged. “That’s an acceptable risk. Furnhill’s fleet is fresh and now they don’t have their command ships. Can they engage us?”

Jones didn’t have to run the calculations, he’d already checked. “Not if we move to fifteen or twenty mps-squared – which our ships can take easily. Crews won’t like it but…”

“Better than dead,” his commander shrugged. “Do it.”

.o0O0o.

Terra Prime, Apollo
Apollo Province, Rim Worlds Republic
29 January 2769

“Third Fleet made it out with thirty operational ships, by a very generous appreciation of operational,” DeChevilier reported grimly. “Nine of the losses were ramming by M-3 drones, including the Camino Real. Four thousand tons at that sort of closing speed isn’t survivable, even by a battleship.”

Kerensky nodded slowly. “We knew the Space Defense Systems would be a problem. I don’t think we appreciated quite how bad it would be. How about Second Fleet?”

“Twenty-seven ships and I think their repair estimates are more realistic.” The Deputy Commanding General made a face. “Six of the losses were FSN ships, two with all hands. It’s a fraction of the whole but…”

“That’s almost a tenth of their warship strength.”

“Seems to be a tradition. Remember Tentativa, back in the Reunification War?”

“Not the same at all,” the smaller man said sharply. “Tentativa was a defeat. This is a victory, albeit at terrible cost.”

“We didn’t take Al Na’ir. Fourteen battalions of troops destroyed aboard their transports – half a division in practical terms. Victory?”

“Losses have been worse against Castles Brian here and in the Hegemony.” Kerensky drew himself up and forced himself to add: “And they will continue to be high. Seventy-two warships destroyed and more than fifty in need of repairs is a high price to pay but the enemy losses were much higher. Almost three hundred M-5 drones and as many M-3s, the Republican fleet too battered to pursue.”

“They held the system,” DeChevilier chided him. “And Joan Brandt…”

“We cannot afford a defeat, so we cannot call it that.” The general rubbed his brow. “John Davion is familiar with… flexible objectives. This was a reconnaissance in force, a testing of the SDS so that we may prepare for operations in the future. In destroying so many drones and gathering invaluable intelligence data, Joan succeeded brilliantly.”

“…yes sir.”

“Posthumously, she will receive the Medal of Valour.”

“Her husband is on New Earth, by last report.”

“Yes, Admiral Peterson’s son. One of the old naval dynasties. Hopefully he has avoided Amaris’ commissars.”

DeChevilier thought of his own family. Intelligence from within the Hegemony had reported the creation of a new government agency, the Office of Policy and Doctrine. It was an innocuous name for a paramilitary force of nebulous mission. At least part of its purpose was rounding up SLDF personnel still at large on Amaris-held worlds – and they drew little line between active personnel, the retired… or dependent families. “So we all pray.”

They stood together, where Stefan Amaris or at least one of his high ministers must have stood at one time or another, sharing in that ugly mood without words.

“You’ve decided to leave Davion in command then?” asked DeChevilier mildly.

“He was her formal deputy and so long as he doesn’t try to take field command, I think he will do well. Baptiste will remain ground commander, after all.”

“And the navy? Belleau is senior.”

“He’s a good man, yes… I would like to promote Janos Grec but Belleau is ready for more responsibility.” Kerensky frowned. “It would not do to hold him back. You can manage him.”

“Me?”

“Yes. We will need a few months to finish reducing the last strongholds of the Republicans but the time has come to look towards opening a second front in the Hegemony. When that time comes, I want you to be in command of our thrust out the Suns.”

“I could take a ship now. Follow our supply lines as far as Skye and cut across Marik’s space with a battle squadron. He’d not dare stop me and we need to reinforce the fleets under Davion’s Army Group.”

“In time, yes. But firstly I need you here to help me prepare our strategy and we must consider how the SDS drones can be better dealt with. Even one ship for every four of them is a price we cannot afford – there were almost seven thousand M-5 drones across the Hegemony and production of M-3 drones is distressingly easy, Amaris could build almost any number of them.” Kerensky shook his head. “We must devise a method first and then… and then you will depart.”

“You’re trusting him with a quarter of the SLDF.” DeChevilier laughed bitterly. “Well, a quarter of what remains.”

“He is an honourable man.”

“So was Brutus.”

The Commanding General of the SLDF shook his head. “He is no Brutus, much less a Caesar, Aaron. His ambition, such as it is, are for the Star League first, his own realm next and only then for himself. He is a rare ally in these times.”

“Rare? Yes, I will agree that allies are rare birds these days. But that’s a low bar. We’ve almost had more help from the damned Taurians than we’ve had from Kenyon Marik and it’s been two years and Minoru Kurita hasn’t said a damn word to you. Not one word!”

Kerensky nodded wearily. “Yet nor has he hindered those who have come of their own will to help us. Remember that.”

“Oh yes, the ronin, the masterless men who’ve been duelling ours for a century and who the Kurita’s have piously protested they cannot restrain. Well, he’s no hypocrite, I’ll grant him that much. Who else is there? The Archon, who won’t help us for spite of you? The Chancellor, who won’t help us for spite of the First Prince.” DeChevilier seemed to run down. “I don’t know, Alek. I think he’s the best of a bad bunch, but I can’t help but think he’s known more about what was going in than he’s ever told us.”

“Let me name another for your list. Lucien Dormax, who is trying desperately to hold the Rim Worlds together for us.”

“And you don’t think he’s ambitious? He needs us. God, and when we embark for Terra what happens here? He’s only clinging to power because of us and the people who’ve joined us here don’t love the League, they just hate Amaris. If we pull out entirely there’ll be a firestorm.”

“We won’t pull out entirely.” Kerensky shook his head. “We’ll need the supplies from here, the facilities. The money, to be brutally honest. At least two armies will need to remain here to hold matters together.”

“You’re probably right, but that’ll mean we need to weaken some of the garrison armies to reinforce the troops on the frontlines.”

His commander gave him a wan smile. “That’s the thinking I need at my side right now. Twelve months, Aaron. John Davion will do us no wrong in that time. And if it makes Minoru Kurita and Barbara Liao nervous, that may not be such a bad thing. When they have done half so much for us as House Davion has in this terrible time, then I shall treat their complaints seriously.”

[Daryk]

Brutal, and well told! O0

[mikecj]

Nice analysis, worthy of the SLDF Commanding General.  wonderful writing D!

[alkemita]

And so the price gets ever steeper.

Great writing, Drak.

[snakespinner]

I love the smell of burning Caspars in the morning. O0

[Zureal]

sweet, davion is in charge? the SLDF will have new found respect for the man no doubt. :)

[DoctorMonkey]

sweet, davion is in charge? the SLDF will have new found respect for the man no doubt. :)

You mean "The Davions"? two heads are better than one, even if one is intangible

[drakensis]

Army Group Eleven Headquarters, New Rhodes III
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
20 February 2769

One advantage of the new, highly secret HPG satellites that the SLDF was beginning to seed the Hegemony with – the ones John was politely pretending not to know about – was that real-time contact was possible with the army and fleet commanders without actually recalling them from their respective headquarters.

John did his best to keep a straight face as Hanse tried to tug on Jerome Blake’s short dark beard. “Blake’s beard!” the ghost declared loudly. “Literally, Blake’s beard!”

“It’s alright, Mr Blake,” John told the engineer, cutting off a convoluted and no doubt entirely fabricated explanation as to how this was allegedly being relayed. “I’m not a hyperspace physicist and I don’t really need to know how you’re doing this. You’ve assured me it’ll work and your expertise speaks for itself.”

“Ah. Well, I’ll… I’ll go oversee the uplink then.”

“Thank you for your hard work,” the prince told him and they shook hands before the engineer left. “Are you sure that’s the man who founded a religion?” he asked under his breath.

“Not founded, just inspired. No one much would remember Jesus if it wasn’t for Saint Paul and Blake would likely be a… well, not a footnote but a fairly short entry if it wasn’t for Toyama.”

“I’m fairly sure the first part of that was sacrilegious. When did you last go to confession?”

“Last Sunday, but the priest didn’t set me any penance.” The redhead winked. “Sometimes I’m not sure he’s even listening.”

The warning light lit up and John refrained from further comment. A moment later the camera presumably started working, for the holograms of officers began to appear along the table. In one case the projector hadn’t been aligned correctly, leaving General Lucas slightly overlapping Admiral Thomas Belleau. In another the relative positions hadn’t been accounted for, because General Simons and Admiral Moore greeted each other while appearing to both be addressing General Baptiste’s seat.

Still, they were all visible to each other. That was all that was really required.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” John tapped the table lightly with one finger and was pleased that the officers fell silent. “I’ve called you together to discuss our plans for the next few months.”

“Respectfully, sir, I hope that won’t be anything too ambitious. We’re a little limited in the available warships at the moment.”

“That, Admiral Belleau, is a question of what would be ‘too ambitious’. So let us set some boundaries. Admiral Brandt’s gallant actions over the winter have shown that we’re not yet ready to engage one of the worlds with a major SDS presence. It’s certainly possible that Al Na’ir itself has been reduced to a relatively soft target but I don’t wish to chance that until we have more information. I hope that you’re all comfortable with that decision.”

There were quiet murmurs of agreement.

“On the other hand, as much as General Kerensky may describe the outcome of the battle as a victory, there is no guarantee that Stefan Amaris will feel that way. He may in fact feel that he’s broken our momentum and that the time is ripe for a counter-attack.”

“Do you think that this is likely?” asked General Simons politely. The commander of the AFFS Expeditionary Corps was coming along nicely in the opinion of both John and Hanse.

“I don’t, but events have shown that Amaris and I don’t agree on everything. There is sufficient risk that I’m of the opinion that Third and Fourth Army will need to remain in reserve for the next few months to ensure the security of the liberated worlds. From what I understand, civil affairs are coming along well and the thirteen planetary governments no longer need day to day support from the SLDF but it’ll be a while before their militias are ready to defend them.”

Jack Lucas put both hands on the table. “Marshal Davion, the Third and Fourth are the strongest armies in your command. We’re the best suited to spearhead offensives.”

“That’s true, but you did exactly that on Addicks and Tigress, costing both of you troops and equipment that are still being worked up as replacements. When we resume the main offensive – which I fully expect to be before the end of the year – I will want you and General Baptiste in the lead, which requires giving your men time to rest and prepare. Believe me; you’ll have all the action you can ask for.” John gave the general a firm look and was gratified to see him subside.

“General Hallestrom?”

The officer straightened. “Sir.”

“The first of the operations we’ll be looking at is the liberation of Yangtze. Nineteenth Army did well on Towne and I’m entrusting them with this as their next mission.”

“Sir.” The stone-faced general nodded firmly.

“General Lucas’ Army will be taking over from you on Towne. Coordinate handing over your responsibilities there with him and arrange movement orders and a preliminary plan by the end of the month. I won’t hold your hand, I’m sure you and your troops know what to do without me trying to second-guess you at all times.”

There might have been a slight degree of appreciation on Hallestrom’s face, but perhaps not. It was hard to say and John decided to leave well enough alone.

“Yangtze is our objective for March, but we’ll need to keep the pressure on so the following month I’m tasking Seventh Army with taking Quentin.”

“That’s quite an aggressive move,” General Huong admitted forthrightly. “T here’s no Castle Brian to worry about but given the ‘Mech factory there, Amaris will have a strong garrison there.”

“While Third Army will be handling security, there’s at least a small hope that Amaris will think we’re shifting focus back to the left flank with Nineteenth Army taking Yangtze. We shouldn’t seriously expect them to lower their guard on Quentin though, since they’re only one jump from your current position on Pokhara. Sixth Army will be acting as a reserve.”

“March and April,” General Baptiste said lightly. “Do you have plans for May too?”

“Yes, that should be enough to persuade Amaris that any weakness on our part is a figment of his analysts’ over-active imaginations.”

“Well where is it? Deneb Kaitos?” asked Lucas.

“Nice place,” Hanse mused. “They joined the Federated Suns in our history, after the Exodus. Amaris had withdrawn his forces to shorten his defensive perimeter, but as they left they laid waste to the world.” His face tightened. “Among other things, using chemical agents to poison the farmlands. All they asked you for was to be fed.”

“Not just yet, unfortunately.” John had to force himself to keep from reacting. “Taking Quentin opens up a more strategic objective for us. One of the major contractors in the development of the SDS was Nirasaki Computers Collective, based – unsurprisingly given the name - upon Nirasaki. Until now we’ve confined ourselves to liberating worlds in Lockdale Province so there’s a very good chance that Amaris won’t expect us to extend our operations.”

“Do you think they’ll have a counter to the drones?” asked Belleau eagerly.

“I doubt there’s a perfect counter, save for the traditional methods, but there may be data we can use to reduce their effectiveness. As uncomfortable as it may make some of you -” John directed a wintry smile at the SLDF majority “- Admiral Grec is heading up a special project to develop and weapons and tactics to use against the drones, including the possibility of building limited capacity drones of our own.”

“You’d use those things?” asked Admiral Moore in horror.

“Admiral I will do anything I must to save the Star League. I’d even work with Liao or Kurita if they offered, although admittedly I feel fairly safe from having to follow through with that.”

.o0O0o.

Fort Sullivan, Cartago
Draconis March, Federated Suns
3 March 2769

“I’ve got a mix of news for you, Ken.”

The senior officer’s mess was nicely appointed but it just felt wrong to Jones. Something about the gravity, or possibly the floor to ceiling windows looking out on a lush garden. Anything that reminded him he was planet bound.

It took him a moment to register that Admiral Moore had used his first name. “Good and bad or staid and shocking.”

“I’d say just about all four.” She sipped her coffee and then set it down. “I’m sorry to say I’ll be losing you as my flag-captain.”

“Well we’ve been serving together a while now, Admiral. Nothing lasts forever in the navy.” He used the napkin to wipe the corner of his lips, using the gesture to cover for tweaking the end of his moustache. “Is that a transfer for me or for me?”

“Both of us, actually. With such heavy losses to the squadron I’ve been called back to New Avalon for a desk posting.” She made a helpless gesture. “I’m not being benched as such, but they want me on Admiral Grec’s joint committee about the drones and there are only so many squadron commands to go around.”

“I doubt this war will end quickly,” he observed quietly. “And I doubt the Prince would pass up an experienced commander when there’s another opening.”

“Thank you,” Moore agreed with less confidence than he’d hoped to instil. “We’ll see. Admiral Goto seems quite upset at no less than six ships vanishing from his operational planning.”

“I’d imagine with the shipyards ticking over that should be taken care of.” Ken thought back to the construction plans underway. “Just in the next two years we’ll have five more ships in service.”

“Which is still one down from where we were on the first of this year.” She shrugged. “Anyway, Tancredi and her squadron are rotating to the Draconis Squadron for the next tour and your crew is going to be raided for cadres I’m afraid.”

“Just when I had everything the way I wanted,” he sighed. “Well, I’ve not done that tour before.”

“Yes, well I’m afraid you won’t be going with her.”

Jones paused as he was about to lift the coffee cup. “I beg your pardon?”

“I made the point, quite sharply, that the four divisions being sent to replace us won’t have any field experience at all in their command post. I’m afraid I may have overplayed that point, because Admiral Goto decided that Commodore Plains is ready to move up and take over the Tancredi, leaving you free for reassignment.”

“A new ship? Well, I suppose it’s flattering to be considered to have useful experience.” The Tancredi’s crew had begun to feel like a family to him, albeit a sprawling and sometimes dysfunctional one. The ship and her fighters had been a smoothly functional instrument in their hands and he had to struggle for composure at the prospect of leaving. “Did he mention which ship?”

“I gather you’ll be aboard the FSS William D Porter.”

“The Wee Willie?” Jones stared at the coffee cup. “I think I may need something stronger.”

Among the oldest ships in the FSN, the William D Porter had been launched from a Terran shipyard in 2380 for service in the Terran Hegemony Navy. By all accounts she’d had a good, if not outstanding record with that service until she was decommissioned in 2531 as obsolete. Forty years in mothballs hadn’t done a thing for the Aegis-class cruiser though and since being re-activated and transferred to the AFFS during the Reunification Wars she’d become known for reasons that no one wanted to be associated with.

She had, for example, been escorting Prince Alexander’s son and grandson in 2596 when their jumpship inexplicably went missing between one system and the next, never to be seen again. And then there was the time her port-bow missile launchers had suddenly opened fire, emptying the magazines before anyone managed to shut them down. Thirty extremely expensive missiles had narrowly missed the battlecruiser transporting the then SLDF Commanding General, Killian Squarn-Turk. Given the incident was immediately following Edict of 2650, real suspicion had existed that the crew was involved in an assassination plot and every officer aboard had been beached for the rest of their careers.

“I think a drink is very much in order,” agreed Moore. She beckoned to the waiter. “Two whiskeys, neat.”

The service was just as excellent as the decoration and two glasses were procured in less than a minute. Jones raised his glass. “To the Wee Willie, may she vent her temper only on the enemy and not her blameless captain.”

Moore drank to that and then raised her own glass. “To the good fortune of the Porter now she’s a flagship, Admiral Jones.”

The glass was halfway back to his lips before he caught that and he paused to give her a very direct look.

“Oh, hahaha, you really thought we were dumping you off a fleet carrier to command that glorified frigate?” she asked. “No, the Porter is flagship of your division. Welcome to the admiralty, Rear Admiral Jones.”

.o0O0o.

Steel Valley, Quentin IV
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
11 April 2769

As the fighting around the MechWorks died down, Ethan limped his Orion behind one of the sub-assembly buildings before taking his hands off the controls and stretching. He’d kill for a shower right now, but that wasn’t happening.

There wasn’t a part of his ‘Mech where the armour wasn’t in the amber on his data display and he was almost out of ammunition for his LRM launcher and autocannon. “Company check,” he called out. “Who needs armour patching and ammo?”

The reports from the other five ‘Mechs was fairly similar, except that he was the only one who’d had his rear armour targeted when Republican helicopters had risked a low pass over the factory, relying on the fact they were in Vectors, ubiquitous in SLDF use, to avoid suspicion until they dropped saboteur squads and opened fire.

The thought reminded him and Ethan switched channel to speak to the armoured support. “I’m calling in for fresh ammunition and repairs. Do you want me to call in the same for you?”

“Appreciated, Moreau,” Lieutenant Pritchard replied. “We could do with ten tons of cluster ammunition, five of LRMs and, ****** Koopman, yes I remember. We also need a fuel truck. I swear, who thought putting diesel engines in a tank was a good idea?”

Ethan had to bite back a grin. Pritchard was just as new as he was to the 225th BattleMech Division; the division had taken losses in the Periphery and again on Tigress. The second rebuilding had meant absorbing survivors of the Fourth Regimental Combat Team as well as fresh recruits like Ethan. He still wasn’t sure why the decorated tank commander had taken him under her wing but her griping about the replacement for her crew’s Demon was a familiar refrain. “I think it predates the fusion reactor, Pritchard.”

“I could believe it with this heap of Feddie crap.”

Privately, Ethan was quite happy to have the company of Culverins in the battle group. Entrenched in fighting positions, their twin autocannon were murderous and Pritchard’s tank alone had wiped out half the helicopter squadron, using the ramp of their fighting position to elevate their guns for the shots.

“I’ll put in a call,” he said, rather than challenging her.

“Thanks,” she said. “I know the griping’s getting old, kid, but if you lose your Orion, how would you feel about getting a… I dunno, some hand-me down from the AFFS stocks.”

“I’m pretty sure your Culverin’s fresh off the factory lines.”

“Not the point.”

There was a muffled sound from behind her.

“Yes, I know they’re starting to turn out Merkavas, Ranson. I don’t care if they have fusion reactors, those heaps were retired two hundred years ago.”

Ethan chuckled. “I’ll get back to you once I hear about the supplies.” Adjusting his radio he found the battle group’s staff channel. “Major Ericsson, this is Lieutenant Moreau. We’re quiet right now and could do with a re-supply if logistics can handle it.”

“Understood, Lieutenant,” the chief of staff confirmed. “We have a field repair team on their way back in, I’ll route them to you once they’re restocked. What do you need?

“Eight tons of LRMs, five tons standard class ten autocannon rounds and ten tons of cluster for the same. A fuel truck and some armour patching should set us straight.”

“What do you want a fuel truck for?” Ericsson demanded. “Your Orions don’t run on diesel, and I’m pretty sure none of them can fire cluster ammunition.”

“I’m batching Lieutenant Pritchard’s supplies with mine.”

“Pritchard? Oh right, Captain Gunnells got med-evaced, didn’t he? I’m surprised she didn’t put in for a dozen Demon tanks as well.”

Ethan snorted. “Do we have them in stock?”

“Not a chance, lieutenant. With Leopard Armor in Amaris’ hands, the only fresh Demons we’ll be seeing are in Republican hands. The intact armoured regiments are hanging onto theirs for dear life so stray battalions like the ones we have are out of luck.”

“I figured.”

“Ammunition though, we can provide. Expect trucks and techs in the next fifteen.”

“Thanks, sir.”

“It’s my job, lieutenant.” The major sounded tired. “If you live long enough, you’ll have to do some honest work too. In the meanwhile, keep your head. The Rimjobs are almost pocketed and we can’t rule out them trying some crazy break-out through the factories.”

“Through the defences here? They’d be crazy.”

“The factories we wouldn’t tac-nuke. If they concentrate for a push somewhere else, that option is on the table.”

Ethan blanched. “Sir, Quentin IV’s not exactly prime real-estate as it is. The locals won’t be happy if we start putting radioactive craters in the scenery.”

“That’s over your pay grade. Over mine too, but personally, if it means not rebuilding the Division a third time with strays and greenies – no offense – then I’m all in favour of some artificial sunshine.”

[drakensis]

FSS William D Porter, Nirasaki
Lone Star Province, Terran Hegemony
15 May 2769

The M-3 drones were accelerating far faster than the Porter’s engines could possibly have propelled her. As Brandt’s unlucky heavy fighter wings had discovered, there were aerospace fighters that couldn’t handle like that in an exo-atmospheric environment.

Fortunately they weren’t trying anything quite that complicated and manoeuvring thrusters rolled the elderly cruiser on her side. “Targets entering broadside arc.”

Jones resisted the temptation to give orders. He wasn’t part of the crew now. For all his authority, a flag officer was a passenger in some respects.

There were sixteen autocannon along the Porter’s flank – older and smaller than the guns on modern combatants but the turrets blew three of the drones apart in a satisfactory fashion. A fourth spun wildly, guns still firing, after taking a hit from one of the laser turrets. The missiles missed wildly though. Something of a shame.

It was enough to disrupt the attack run though, the two intact drones had to adjust their course to avoid debris and that gave Porter’s escorts time to respond. FSS Reynard Davion wasn’t up to the standards of late model Davion-class destroyers – too old for the refits that had been carried out for the Arthur and Katherine Davion – but her captain had made the best of what he had and the prow autocannon were more of a brute force solution than a pair of 4,000 ton drones really required.

Not that Jones minded over-kill when it came to robotic killers intent on ramming the ship he was aboard.

“Good work,” he said quietly on the command channel. “But that was a side-show. The real fight is up ahead.”

The icons around Nirasaki were entirely too familiar – a Monsoon-class battleship surrounded by a mix of Rim Worlds and Terran hulls. More than half of the Rim fleet at Al Na’ir had still been ready for action when the ships of Second and Third Fleet withdrew. More than likely their damaged ships were still there but for whatever reason, forty ships had been pulled back here which meant that Nineteenth Fleet would have a fight on their hands before the ground forces could be landed.

Half of Nineteenth fleet, rather. The 192nd Escort squadron was still detached on convoy duty, the 191st was covering the transports and the 195th Reconnaissance squadron was currently probing Al Na’ir. That left two line squadrons – Belleau’s own 193rd and Hofmann’s 194th with twenty-nine ships between them – and the two six-ship squadrons of the AFFS attached to them.

“Jones.” The flag channel lit up, Admiral Paulette Benden was the senior of the two squadron commanders and Jones’ immediate superior. “Belleau’s given us responsibility for aerospace defence while his squadrons focus on shipping strikes. It’ll stretch our air groups so if any ships break past the Star League squadrons it’ll be up to you and Henderson’s divisions to cover us.”

“Aye, sir.” Jones understood the unspoken message: Belleau was putting his own squadrons on point and keeping the FSN in a secondary role, but at the same time he was tying FSS Pleiades and her sister ship FSS Kathil to stay in support range of the line squadrons. If they moved back to stay clear then they wouldn’t be able to rotate their fighters through a prolonged engagement.

Instinctively, the Star League Navy sought to hold their ships into a tight and mutually supporting formation. It was a sound doctrine, and it allowed them to deliver shattering blows, but it meant that the entire force would manoeuvre at the speed of the slowest ships.

Then Jones smiled depreciatingly. He was as responsible as anyone for the doctrine of the FSN, and now he was on one of those slower ships. “If that happens, my squadron will be ready.”

Neither of the two fleets was built for head on attacks. Their ships mounted their best firepower upon the flanks and thus they angled carefully towards each other, stacking ships in vertical slices – the heavier cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships, then the lighter destroyers, frigates and corvettes, finally the frontline of dropships screening them.

The SLN customarily pushed fighters out beyond that, but with the enemy clearly sighted, Benden had argued with and won her point – the FSN’s wings sheltered behind the dropships, waiting for a clear attack before they would move out and engage.

They didn’t have to wait long.

The Rim Worlds’ admiral could count – his flagship was the only battleship available to him, the bulk of his fleet’s firepower was a single over-sized squadron of Avatar-class cruisers and fully a quarter of their hulls were corvettes. An extended exchange of battery fire between the two fleets could have only one outcome.

As two fleets entered extreme weapons range of each other’s screening dropships, fighters began to stream from the Rim Worlds formation and Belleau ordered his own ships to respond in kind. Between them more than five hundred fighters headed into the ‘no man’s land’ between the two fleets, a region of space alive with missiles, fast moving explosive and kinetics, not to mention brief and invisible pulses of coherent light or charged particles.

Assault dropships added their own firepower to the mix, targeting the fighters just as enemy warships fought to suppress them and open a path for the fighters.

Fighters began to die, but dropships were being blasted too, tearing holes in the screens and Jones saw the Rim’s aerospace fighters punch through, towards the SLDF’s secondline. Darting from among the destroyers though were the first wave of fighters from the Pleiades and the Kathil. Only narrowly outnumbered, for the Rim Worlders had held part of their fighter force back to defend their own ships, they had the advantage of mobility over the missile-laden Rim fighters – and they weren’t trying to break through to engage the SLN’s heavy ships of the third line.

Either out of self-preservation or a last minute attempt to salvage part of the attack force, Rim fighters began to jettison missiles – or fire them off at any target in range – so they could turn and engage the Suns fighters… and the remaining wings of fighters were already launching from the carriers behind Wee Willie to join the fight.

Nuclear fireballs were beginning to mark the formations of warships, SLS Jules Verne blew apart – the unfortunate corvette had been nearest to the penetration of the first line and at least a dozen missiles had struck her.

Other SLN warships took hits and carried on, rolling their hulls to continue the engagement with the weapons and armour of unscarred flanks. Across the battlefield the Star League fighters unleashed their own missiles on corvettes and destroyers without trying to press further. Rim Worlds fighters slashed through their formations but numbers told, for here the defending fighters were outnumbered.

The clash was too intense and too distant for Jones to make out until the fury abated and almost two hundred SLN fighters roared back out of the maelstrom and into the space between the fleets. The dropships had reached their own engagement range now, much depleted by warship fire, and as capital weapons began to shift fire to warships, the surviving dropships turned their fire on each other, with little to spare for the fighters.

The Rim Worlds had claimed a second kill in the SLN lines, with the destroyer SLS Yeovil broken into three separate sections by missile hits. But less than thirty fighters lunged back for the safety of their own fleet, chased by more than a hundred FSN fighters… and the returning Star League fighters adjusted course to intercept them.

Jones didn’t see even one reach the questionable safety of their own lines and the Rim escort line had been brutally hammered by the fighter’s Alamo missiles. No more than twelve ships had survived that wave of attacks, bringing them to numerical parity with the SLN’s own escorts, and those survivors withered as the heavy ships closed in.

“Our first wave fighters are coming back to reload,” the airboss reported. Porter and her escorts could contribute no more than thirty fighters between them to the squadron’s aerospace strength and only twelve of them had been in the first wave. Now ten of those fighters returned slipping out from amid the formations returning to the Pleiades and the Kathil.

“Expedite them, we might need the cover.” The Rim fleet wasn’t trying to break off. The last pair of their destroyers formed up with the Monsoon-class – once SLS Thunderer she’d apparently been re-named AES Maxwell Rowe by the Usurper. To Jones’ amusement, the SLDF insisted on displaying the prefix as RWRS – Rim Worlds Republic Ship – rather than give any recognition to Amaris’ self-proclaimed empire by referring to the enemy vessels as Amaris Empire Ships.

Four Lola-class destroyers fell back behind Belleau’s main battle line and unlike the Rim fleet they didn’t attempt to maintain station. Already battered, the fast destroyers gathered what was left of the dropship wing around them and withdrew towards the FSN ships. They had no business in the brutal hammering of capital ships and unlike their counterparts they had somewhere else to go.

Anchored by the battleships Borodino and Pearl Harbour, the seventeen SLN warships – two more battleships, five Cameron-class battlecruisers and eight Sovetskii Soyuz heavy cruisers – opened fire on the Maxwell Rowe and the ten Avatar-class cruisers with her, not sparing the two battered Rim Worlds destroyers. The Rim warships returned their own broadsides and Jones grimaced – not even the entire FSN were it somehow assembled in once place, could have matched the intensity of this exchange.

Contrary to all expectations, the first warship to die was SLS Kharkov. The heavy cruiser had been singled out by the Maxwell Rowe and the battleship’s heavy autocannon smashed the smaller ship open from stem to stern.

The two Rim destroyers didn’t long survive the Star League cruiser but Jones saw that the Rim fleet were concentrating their fire on the heavy cruisers, ignoring the heavier ships in order to wear down the numbers of their adversaries. Kharkov’s sister-ship Kursk blew apart before the first of the Avatars died.

“And the Star League retired those ships?” Jones murmured in disbelief as the Rim heavy cruisers rolled to bring undamaged broadsides to bear.

Belleau’s own fire shifted and all four Star League battleships brought the Maxwell Rowe under fire, PPCs and lasers from the squadron tearing great glowing gouges in the hull as their autocannon shells smashed against it.

It seemed impossible that any ship could sustain that battering, but SLS Kiev too died to the Rowe’s broadside fire before finally, in a single cataclysmic detonation, the 1.3 million ton battleship met its end.

Leaderless, the Rim cruisers fire faltered. Two more of them blew apart as a pair of Cameron-class battlecruisers of the line closed in, relying on their heavier armour and the enemy focus on their own cruisers to survive the point-blank engagement.

The battlecruisers audacity succeeded in drawing the attention of the seven survivors and autocannon fire ripped into the flanks of the two ships as Belleau’s battleships and surviving cruisers moved up to outflank the remains of the Rim Worlds fleet.

All but forgotten amongst all the sound and fury, two wings of fighters from the Pleiades plunged into the fray and each had singled out one of the Avatars. Missiles lanced out, penetrating the damaged armour the cruisers were trying to shield from the Star League ships. Both cruisers burned from the inside out as nuclear warheads detonated within their hulls, two more battered to ruin came apart within a minute of the strike.

Before Kathil’s fighters could arrive for their own attack runs, the battle line completed its envelopment on the three remaining Rim ships. Englobed, the Avatars died defiantly, taking the battlecruiser SLS Saint John with them and reducing SLS Carlos Dangmar Lee, the other battlecruiser to dare their point-blank fury, to a bleeding wreck barely under power.

.o0O0o.

Army Group Eleven Headquarters, New Rhodes III
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
15 June 2769

“One noteputer,” Gerik Chudzik reported bleakly. “We’d have done less damage to the NCC facilities if we’d had to fight for them. One of the most important computer research centres in the entire Hegemony and we could only recover one noteputer.”

“Amaris was thorough. That doesn’t surprise me,” John replied. “We cannot underestimate the man. I don’t know what I have to say to get this through people’s heads, but he is not stupid. Insane, possibly. Vicious, definitely. But not a fool. He knew just as much as we do that the drones are by far the most effective weapon in his arsenal.”

“As far as we can reconstruct, the site was stripped in ’67.” Chudzik shook his head. “Everyone there and every other computer was taken away, most likely to Terra. I shudder to think what they might develop for him.”

“I suspect that that would be a tertiary concern at best. Amaris would have been concerned first about restoring the SDS systems that were damaged in the coup, then about denying us potential access to the people who had the best chance of devising counters to the drones.” John shook his head. “And I doubt they co-operated.”

“Do you have a source of information?” asked Baptiste, who was physically present in his office unlike Chudzik.

“The noteputer we found was hidden deliberately,” explained Sixth Army’s commander. “A Doctor Glimp and several of her colleagues had realised that they were under observation and so they compiled everything they could think of that might be a vulnerability for the SDS systems they’d worked on. Hoping that it would be found after they’d gone.”

“I’d say that that’s a slim hope, but they were right. It has been found. Is there anything useful?” she asked hopefully.

John shrugged. “Their summaries don’t seem promising, but they’re the same people who brainstormed potential flaws during development to try to counter this sort of thing. A fresh set of eyes might find new approaches.”

“Like Admiral Grec’s team on New Avalon?”

“That’s one of them. I’ve told my son to round up the best minds in the Federated Suns to support the efforts. It’s a security hazard for you but General Kerensky has given his agreement that letting my people see data that might let us replicate the drones is worthwhile if it improves the chances of developing counter-measures.” John shook his head. “Anyway, we’re also sending a copy to the Rim Worlds for Kerensky’s own headquarters to look at. Admiral McTiernan agreed to let a courier use the hidden recharge stations so a dropship is on the way.”

“He protects those stations as if they’re his own children,” Chudzik noted.

Baptiste shook her head. “Those stations are vital for coordinating our spy ships and the supply missions to resistance groups. He’s right that they can’t be compromised until worlds near them are liberated.”

“I stand corrected. I assume a suitable officer is accompanying the data in case of trouble with the Steiners?”

“A Major Drummond, who’s been here on something I’m not cleared for.” John gave his ground forces commander a reassuring look. “Don’t worry, General. I’m not offended. Kerensky handpicked him to tell me ‘none of my business’ if need be, so I assume he’ll be more than capable of bulling through any LIC or LCAF interference.”

Chudzik frowned. “Drummond… the one who’s… ah…” He gave an embarrassed cough.

John pressed his hands over his ears. “I’m not listening, I’m not listening.”

“Please be serious,” Baptiste told him. “You certainly know more about that matter than General Kerensky wants you to know.”

“I might, I might not. Let’s just say there are certain technologies that I’d very much like the Federated Suns to have, but not at the expense of bringing Amaris down. And as long as General Kerensky can honestly tell the other Council Lords that, no I’m not being granted access to classified technologies that they don’t, then we have a much reduced chance of one of them coming off the fence in the wrong direction.”

“Respectfully, sir, the AFFS is getting access to things that they wouldn’t normally.”

John looked at the two generals and then shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, but that’s at Kerensky’s discretion, not a matter of me using my position to enrich the Federated Suns. Look at, oh, the salvage operations for battlefields in the Hegemony. Anything that can’t be put back into service quickly is shipped back to be warehoused in the Suns until engineers either do a full rebuild or strip useful parts off and scrap the rest. Every piece has to be accounted for because my peers would point and howl if some of that SLDF hardware wound up in my stores and not General Kerensky’s.”

“And none of it’s to make sure the AFFS gets it’s agreed on percentage?” asked Baptiste shrewdly. “I know there was bargaining back in ’65 over what share of salvage your units in the Periphery would get.”

“If it was just that then I’d take Kerensky’s word for the numbers. Spending money checking to see if that man’s being honest is just throwing it away. No, all that checking is to make sure that salvage made available for the AFFS is either our own damaged hardware or Rim Worlds wreckage.”

“And may I say that the salvage work is impressively thorough?” offered Chudzik. “My own techs are impressed at the… almost mania that your astechs have for putting damaged equipment back into service.”

“It’s a lesson we learned in the Border War. Re-learned, probably. Everything we can repair on the frontlines is something that doesn’t have to be shipped forwards. Logistics may not be everything in war, but it’s one of the biggest headaches, particularly if you let your attention slip.” John chuckled suddenly. “It can lead to some odd equipment selections though. The Fifth Crucis Dragoons have quite a lot of Capellan ‘Mechs we salvaged on Valexa seven years ago, including a lance of Liao assault quads pieced back together somehow. God only knows how long they’ll be able to keep them running.”

Baptiste blinked. “Goliaths? I thought they were licensed to Corean – don’t they have factories right on New Avalon that could provide parts? We were looking at buying some from the Brigadier Corporation to replace our losses in the Periphery,” she added when both men looked at her in surprise. “My staff suggested that if we needed spare parts we could order them locally rather than sending to the Hegemony or the Free Worlds League.”

“Well that would make sense, but they’re not Goliaths. I had to look this up, but apparently before Brigadier got involved in building quad-Mechs, Hollis Incorporated had a try. It doesn’t seem to have done either firm much good, really, but now we have some we may as well use them I suppose.”

[ckosacranoid]

i have to wonder which quad that was being used by the new owners and that are being talked about. The setup with blake and hanse was funny and should have been a little bit more to it though...that is just crying for a extra cut scence with hanse meeting the good doctor and seeing him in the flesh.

[SCC]

i have to wonder which quad that was being used by the new owners and that are being talked about. The setup with blake and hanse was funny and should have been a little bit more to it though...that is just crying for a extra cut scence with hanse meeting the good doctor and seeing him in the flesh.

Xanthos, there was a section dealing with them

[nerd]

So you just killed what becomes the CWS Dire Wolf in the normal BTU. Nice  8)

[drakensis]

FSS William D. Porter, Al Na’ir System
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
22 August 2769

Reconnaissance had identified a hundred drones guarding each jump point, almost all of them smaller M-3s. There would be no jumping in without being spotted – it might be possible to jump in far enough out that immediate engagement wouldn’t result, but the data wasn’t that current. An HPG was just as obvious as a jump flare in some respects so the spy ships had to be very careful.

“It’s ironic,” Admiral Benden had told Kenneth Jones earlier. “Admiral Brandt wouldn’t have ordered us in on the first wave because it would look as if she was treating us as expendable. But now that the First Prince is in command he has to send FSN ships first or the reverse is true.”

“Some ships are more expendable that others,” he’d replied.

Non-essential personnel had been disembarked, not that a warship had many of those. Flight deck staff could be sent though – the chances of being called on to refuel or rearm a fighter were very slim. Most of Jones’ staff wasn’t needed either. The carriers had plenty of spare room for them – part of the redesign he’d ordered had ensured there was life support and barracks for hundreds of excess personnel – and neither of those was going to be sent in the first wave.

Six ships, manned by the bare minimum needed to fight them. And the admirals. Ramirez, aboard FSS Anjin Muerto, and Jones himself aboard Wee Willie. Strictly speaking, neither man was filling a role in operating the ships, but tradition was clear: their divisions were going into harm’s way, so it was their obligation to be aboard.

The brief moment of disorientation passed as they entered the system. Jones gripped the arms of the shock frame and watched. The flag deck was empty and silent without his staff so he’d relocated to the Combat Information Centre where at least he was not alone.

“Fighters away. Take us up thirty, starboard seven,” ordered Captain Toland from the navigational bridge.

They’d crammed forty fighters aboard somehow, loading them into shuttle bays and improvised a catapult arrangement that would launch two squadrons out of the cargo-bay doors – not exactly a dignified launch since it amounted to three cargo arms, each gripping a structural member that four fighters had been clamped to.

The tactical display cleared up after the interminable span of forty, maybe forty-five, seconds. Space around them was awash with crimson.

None of the other ships were in a position to support – they’d emerged pointing in all directions and the orders were simple – if drones were in range then engage them immediately, forcing them to focus upon the first wave and let the second wave of ships arrive and orientate themselves without an immediate threat.

Porter’s guns shook her elderly framework as they fired into the drones, the fighters scattering as they singled out targets from the swarming drones. The old cruiser’s power systems couldn’t manage both broadsides but everything from bow to stern along her port-side was firing.

Eight M-3 drones died under that battering but lasers, missiles and gauss slugs were clawing away at the Porter’s flank. Individually they were little threat, but as Jones had found at Tortuga, enough of them in time could do the job.

“Missiles!” someone shouted.

For a moment Jones wondered if they meant the fighters’ Alamos, which were already launched, or the Porter’s own launchers – responsible for two drones killed.

Then he saw the trace on the screen and backtracked it to the shark that had emerged from the M-3 minnows. One of the M-5s was still here and its bow guns were hurling fire after the missiles it had already fired.

The Wee Willie’s hull screamed as nuclear fire smashed against her prow. Jones was rattled in the shock-frame and the lighting flickered. He grabbed for his emergency mask but there was no scream of air, the compartment was still sealed.

Automatically he checked the repeater from the bridge. It showed only static. The ship status display…

Bridge, bow turret, even the forward missile launchers were dark.

“Roll the ship!” Two voices, his own and Major Kirkland’s as the XO took over responsibility for the Porter.

Jones lifted his hand in apology. “Your conn, Captain.”

“Perseverant and Belligerent are gone,” someone noted.

“Worry about that Caspar first,” Jones snarled. The little corvettes hadn’t had much chance of surviving this to begin with. Hopefully the crews had made it off.

The Porter’s roll was off-axis and the ship heeled wildly. Thruster damage, Jones noted.

“Stop swearing, Jackson. Stop trying to compensate too.” Kirkland unlocked her shock-frame and leapt across the compartment to direct the man. “We need to shield the bow – more shots into that could punch deep in, there’s so little armour left. Tactical, focus fire on the Caspar.”

Some gunners weren’t getting the new orders and both broadsides were firing now, engaging any M-3 drone that crossed their arc of fire, without regard to the limits of the power system. They’d carved a wedge out of the drone formation, but ships that had been engaging the corvettes were now swarming over the larger vessels. Two port-side turrets managed to lock-up the M-5 and six autocannon shells punched through her flank armour while three lasers smashed the drone’s bow particle projection cannon to pieces.

Then the M-5 brought her broadside to bear and opened up. A squadron of fighters dived into the gulf between the two behemoths, splitting into pairs to engage the capital missiles darting down on the Porter. Two of the missiles blew up, shots hitting their propellant. The third detonated short of the Porter – perhaps deliberately – and the pursuing fighters tumbled out of the explosion, pilots dead or dying from the radiation, control surfaces and instrumentation melted by the pulse of heat.

No miracle of bravery could prevent the autocannon from scoring hits though and eight hammer blows crashed against the cruiser’s dorsal hull, smashing their way along the Porter’s spine.

In CIC, Major Kirkland flew across the compartment, a chagrined expression on her face until her head hit the tactical display. Blood mixed with the holography in bizarre patterns as the woman went limp.

Shaken inside his frame, Jones shook his head trying to shake off the stunning effect of the Wee Willie’s pounding. Perhaps through sheer stubbornness, power stayed on and he looked around CIC. What was the chain of command now? “I have the conn,” he said flatly. “Medic to the bridge for Major Kirkland -” no longer the ship’s captain “- and get me a damage report.”

“Drives down,” a young leftenant reported. “Control runs are out. Primary power down for starboard broadside. Flight deck down, hell there’s a twenty metre hole between it and the cargo bay.”

“Keep your head, leftenant,” he ordered, forcing calm. “Have the laser turret crews shut their systems down and join damage control teams, we can aim and fire the autocannon and missiles off auxiliary power as long as we’re not trying to fire lasers off the same circuit.” He hoped he was right about that, the Tancredi could manage it but the Porter was much older. Can’t show doubt, he reminded himself. And right now nothing is in arc to fire on the Caspar anyway. “Handling thrusters?”

“Limited function, I can stop the roll.”

Jones checked the tactical display and then the ship systems display. “Don’t do that,” he said thoughtfully. The first hits had knocked out both the bow missile launchers but the port-bow launcher now showed as green. A fault? Maybe, but if not…

“Damage control, confirm status on the port-bow missile tubes.”

“Aye sir.” The leftenant turned back to his console and meanwhile Jones looked at the wider picture.

FSS Reynard Davion was no longer transmitting and the Anjin Muerto was bleeding air and fire. The Congress-class frigate was fractionally heavier than the William D Porter, but in trade off for more powerful engines, she had thinner armour and a lighter broadside. Somewhere beyond her FSS Robert Davion’s beacon reported that the destroyer was still fighting, but little else.

“Jump flares, sir, multiple flares…”

Half the M-3 drones were gone, the rest focusing on the three wounded survivors of the FSN squadron. It would take time for them to realign to engage the new arrivals, time that the second wave could use to form a defensive formation and co-ordinate their fire.

“Then our mission is complete. Now all we need to do is to survive.”

“Sir, damage control reports the tubes are intact. They were down because the muzzles were blocked by debris from the first strike. It’s been shaken free now.”

“Good.” There was just enough time. “Gunnery, those tubes will be in arc on the M-5 in thirty seconds. Make sure they’re loaded with Santa Anas and fire as they bear.”

The Senior Leftenant checked his board. “Load confirmed. Targeting solution…”

“Lifeboats departing the Anjin Muerto,” the sensor operators reported quietly.

On the tactical display, the roll brought the M-5 into the firing arc of the missile tubes, its own weapons cycling and ready for a coup de grace salvo before it retasked to handle the incoming warships.

“Firing.”

Three White Shark missiles leapt from the lamed cruiser’s nose – just as they must have at a startled SLDF general, more than a century before.

The first sailed past the M-5’s blunt bow.

The second detonated against one of the four engine nacelles and tore through armour into the systems beneath.

The third disappeared skimmed past an autocannon turret and detonated behind and below, outlining the Caspar in light for a moment. For a moment it seemed that the M-5 had escaped, but then the bow fell out of alignment with the engines and the drone tore in two as if its mid-section was mere paper, structural members violated behind their ability to support the massive power of the drives.

The first ships of the second wave, SLN heavy cruisers, burst through hyperspace one at a time. Between the first and second arrival, the Robert Davion’s transponder ceased to transmit.

.o0O0o.

Summer Palace, Sian
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
4 October 2769

Leaving her precious art collection behind, the Chancellor had relocated to the gardens and held audience for visitors in a pavilion of white marble pillars wound around with vines native to Sian. At other times of the year they might flower but today they gave the construction a morbid air.

“I have erred,” she said with no small amount of frustration.

“Please mother.” Baltazar Liao wore a high-collared shirt and his trousers were bloused around the top of cavalry style boots in the latest court fashion. Tai Yang Gwak imagined they must be painful to walk in for any appreciable time; he’d certainly eschewed such boots unless he actually planned to ride a horse. “We’re in public, anyone could hear you.”

“Such as the fluttering courtiers who think that calling me Celestial Highness in public will buy more favour than practical service?” Barbara Liao snorted disdainfully. “They are wrong about both. Delusions of divine favour are a luxury our house cannot afford, Baltazar.”

“Perhaps her excellency would enlighten her servant as to her concerns so that all may be made right?”

Barbara eyed him thoughtfully and then jerked her head, indicating the bench at the side of the pavilion. “Sit, Gwak.”

Oh dear. This was unprecedented. Obediently, he seated himself with his back to one of the marble columns.

“The peacock of Atreus has been crowing again, boasting of how much of the SLDF’s property he has bullied them to sell to him and of how grandly his forces are now endowed,” the Chancellor murmured. “I doubt this pleases Robert Steiner who has Kerensky’s eyes fixed upon him as the SLDF redeploys across the Commonwealth.”

“It hardly pleases me.” Her young heir frowned, brow furrowed. “Although we have done much the same, have we not? The destroyers that were docked at Capella, for example.”

“Yes. And this is my error. Learn from this, son. I allowed my anger at John Davion blind me to his goal.”

“How could you not hate him? He took grandfather’s death as an excuse to invade us, killed thousands of our citizens and nearly stole three worlds away before the Cameron came of age.” Baltazar almost spat into the flowerbeds but recalled his manners. “I didn’t like the First Lord, but at least he saw justice done there.”

“Hate him? Of course I hate him. But I should never have despised him.”

Gwak nodded thoughtfully. “It is important to grasp an adversary’s strengths that they can be effectively undermined. You spoke of his goal…?”

“Few of House Cameron survive – distant kin with no useful claim for the most part. The closest relative to Richard left is his cousin, spawn of a bastard and a Davion.”

“Guerever Cameron is dead,” Baltazar noted. “Was that…?” He directed a questioning look at Tai Yang.

The aged Director shook his head. “She simply fell ill according to my sources. Had someone planned the matter, her children would also have been dealt with.”

“There is no question that Kerensky will triumph over Amaris. None. But what then?” the Chancellor shook her head. “That is the question that all of the Council are contemplating. There is no clear succession for the Terran Hegemony, and by extension, to the First Lord’s throne.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?” Baltazar looked over at Tai Yang. “What do you mean?”

“I must crave pardon. My own counsel should have uncovered this line of thought before.” He turned to Baltazar. “We have contemplated only that the decision of succession would lie within the Council, for the SLDF would put down any attempt to seize power by other means. Even weakened as they are…”

“But Davion has followed Amaris’ example. Rather than confront them directly, he has used his army to work his way within their defences and into their command structures. Into the confidence of their leaders. Kerensky has no desire to rule and no heirs to provide for; the man is almost a eunuch. But if he were to sway towards any Council Lord as kingmaker, or were a less principled leader succeed to the post of Commanding General then the SLDF could readily impose a First Lord of their choice.”

The young man stared at his mother. “But they had not, they would not! The SLDF stays out of politics.”

“So we have all believed. But that could change. And John Davion would have it change. Marik and Steiner crow at the fortunes they’re making at the SLDF’s expense but wealth does not spring from hoarding. The Star League is collecting full taxes in the Suns and spending them there.”

Tai Yang frowned. “The best source of economic data from other realms has always been that gathered by the BSLA, but that is no longer centrally available. My understanding is that Davion has seen his economy shrink as we all have, with the loss of trade to the Hegemony – and he was their largest trading partner. And yet… he has not suffered worse, in fact some worlds are rebounding.”

“That perfidious prince has been a step ahead of us the entire time. Playing the honourable man… well it must appeal to Kerensky.” The Chancellor shook her head, tiny bells in her headdress chiming. “A profound error on my part and one that must be dealt with.”

“We would never accept a Davion as First Lord!” Baltazar protested.

“With Kerensky’s regiments at his back? Oh yes, I would bow,” she told him grimly. “Better to accept him as First Lord and try to muzzle him through the Council than to have the SLDF turn their guns upon us. Even as matters stand they have eighty ‘Mech regiments upon our soil and Kerensky is popular – look at how many have flocked to enlist in the SLDF in its hour of need.”

Tai Yang bowed his head. “And many of them then trained across the border, where Kerensky can be sure that Davion will not interfere… overtly.”

“Oh yes. Davion may not claim the throne himself of course. He could advance a puppet easily enough. His own vote and a Cameron-Davion First Lord, then convince Marik or Steiner to throw in with him… the First Lord’s vote breaks ties after all. The Terran Hegemony and Federated Suns tied together would have vast economic power.”

“Can we stop him?” Her son rubbed his chin. “Not from outside, we don’t have the forces – even if the other Lords supported us, we’d just be painted as siding with Amaris. Kerensky’s too popular to openly oppose.”

“I’m glad you see that. I believe a case can be made that while the bulk of the SLDF was in the Periphery, the Confederation was too exposed to openly declare our opposition to Amaris. After all, our military strength is least amongst the Member States and our economy damaged by the loss of trade with the Hegemony. If we are not the first to offer aid, it is at least plausible that we had good reason to wait.”

Tai Yang rubbed his chin. “There is then the matter of what we can offer to him in support.”

“On the military front, even Davion has only sent the equivalent of two Divisions,” the Chancellor declared. “Since he dare not break the peace with us if we seem to be co-operating with Kerensky, we may withdraw equivalent forces from our shared border and offer them to Kerensky for service with the SLDF armies striking out of the Lyran Commonwealth.”

Baltazar nodded emphatically. “No one could expect our forces to fight under Davion’s command. Not after the Border War. Which -”

“Very good. It reminds Kerensky that his current ally has been an aggressor given the opportunity.” She frowned. “We have crewed the destroyers purchased from the SLDF with loyal crews, but they require experience. They can be placed at Kerensky’s service for escort duties. Since that was to be their role anyway, there would be no logic in their being expended in costly assaults such as the recent battle of Al Na’ir.”

Seeing that the Chancellor’s heir seemed puzzled, Tai Yang spoke up. “Lord Baltazar may not yet have been made aware that Davion succeeded in securing the system where Admiral Brandt did not. Of course, the defenders had been much reduced already by her unsuccessful attack, but it nonetheless heralded as a victory for the forces under his command. The Federated Suns Navy was committed to the first wave of warships seizing one of the jump points and five of their ships were destroyed, another will need at least a year of repairs.”

“Possibly he was over-confident,” Barbara Liao mused. “But that may not be the case. I will not under-estimate him a second time. It is possible he allowed such losses to underscore his claim of commitment to Kerensky’s cause.”

Tai Yang bowed. “The agents of your Maskirova will investigate further, your excellency.”

“Financially…” Barbara sighed. “I will address the House of Scions, make it clear that the SLDF… no, appeal to his pride, that General Kerensky needs support and that the taxes paid to the Star League are vital to his struggle. The withholding of League taxes can no longer be excused.” She made a dismissive gesture. “It will at least play well to the citizens who idolize ‘The Protector of the Star League’.”

[drakensis]

Army Group Eleven Headquarters, New Rhodes III
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
27 November 2769

“If the Marshal had known your schedule I’m sure he’d have delayed his visit to the frontlines,” Janos Grec said apologetically as he welcomed Aaron DeChevilier to the command centre.

“Is that what they call him? The Marshal?”

“Well it’s his rank – Marshal of the AFFS.”

“Yes, but -” There are echoes there of ‘the General’, the way men refer to Aleksandr, DeChevilier thought. He refrained from finishing thought out loud. “I’d expected his political rank, is all. He’s well thought of then?”

“By and large.” The admiral was almost ten years the Deputy Commanding General’s age. “Lucas is champing at the bit a little – he’s a fire-eater.”

DeChevilier smiled slightly – the commander of Third Army was one of his protégés. “Aggressive officers win wars.”

“He didn’t much like being held back on the defensive after Al Na’ir went poorly. Letting him go to Helen was like popping the cork off a bottle.”

“He hasn’t done anything reckless, has he?” DeChevilier settled into a chair at the conference table.

“No, just eager.” Grec grimaced. “The news from Quentin had been circulating.”

“I’ve been out of touch.”

The older man looked at him. “I’ll make sure you have the details later, but Amaris has been pushing military factories to meet impossible quotas. We’d not really encountered it so far, but when the MechWorks at Quentin hadn’t met their initial quota he had the workforce decimated.”

“That’s insane!”

“Oh yes. Twice, in fact. And then their families were rounded up and used as hostages, those who weren’t put to work replacing the executed workers.”

“That can’t possibly have worked out well.”

“The most frightening thing is that they were meeting the new quota – which had been increased, not decreased. Quality control had gone to shit – it’s not just battle damage that needs to be made good – but they were delivering something like a hundred and twenty assault ‘Mechs a year to Amaris’ forces until we liberated them.”

Aaron DeChevilier mapped that sort of demands across the industrial might of the Hegemony and had to hide a flinch. “John Davion was right then. The longer Amaris is allowed to entrench, the worse this will be.”

“That’s my own assessment, yes.”

“And he’ll be building drones the same way.” DeChevilier looked Grec in the eyes. “Do we have a counter for them?”

“Not exactly. They’re disturbingly capable. My team think we might be able build a jammer that could affect their performance, or at least their co-ordination. It’s a work in progress though and the systems are huge, even for warships.”

“Define huge?”

The admiral considered. “Something on the order of fitting a planetary HPG into a ship. It’ll be dockyard work just to fit them.”

“Whatever it takes. Castles Brian we can take care of, but those drones are murder. If we keep taking the losses from Al Na’ir then there won’t be a Star League Navy left by the time we reach Terra.”

“I’ll do everything I can. We’re refitting a pair of cruisers now but they’ll have to be tested.”

“I brought Twentieth Fleet with me. Once you’re ready, there’ll be a sufficiently large fleet that we can target a system defended by a SDS.”

Grec nodded. “Sometime around the start of the year,then. You’ll want to talk to Thomas Belleau about deployments. Even with FSN support, we’ve been stretched to cover the supply lines out to Nirasaki. And we can’t afford to let Amaris take a world back.”

“Absolutely not,” agreed DeChevilier. “God alone knows what that maniac would do to the population. But we’ll have to do without the FSN against the SDS in future.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“You can talk to General Kerensky if you want, but he’s given me firm orders. From now on, our ally’s warships are to focus on escorting convoys and other rear-area duties to free up our own ships for the frontlines.”

That got a scowl. “If this is a matter of trust…”

“Good lord, of course not! No one doubts their courage or their loyalty, but they’ve lost eleven ships out of the twenty-one that have been operating alongside us just in the last twelve months. They’re just not equipped for fighting the battles we’re seeing and I shudder to think what it’s doing to their morale.”

The admiral studied the table. “Their carriers are an immense advantage.”

“And how many of those fighters have died? Their casualty rates are getting near to those of the infantry brigades.” Urban fighting was chewing through the foot soldiers of the SLDF at an appalling rate. It said something that ship losses against the SDS were of greater concern than that. DeChevilier gave Grec a patient look. “Covering our supply lines is still important work, and if their carriers can do so much then that’ll just make them more effective there.”

Grec took a deep breath and then exhaled. “Just be diplomatic. They’re proud men and women, and not the sort of arrogance some of their MechWarriors have shown.”

“Absolutely. For god’s sake, I’m from the Suns myself! Went to Sakhara and Albion. We trust them at our backs; it’s just that that’s where we want them: covering our backs.” The general smiled broadly. “Actually, Kerensky’s sent a gift for them.”

“Do tell.”

“There was a pair of battleships under construction over Apollo when we took it. Neither has their armament fitted, but we were able to get the jump drives working and scratch crews brought them along with Twentieth Fleet. It doesn’t make up for the losses, but you know how few capital ships the FSN has. This should go a little way towards helping them. They might not be McKennas but they’re probably at least as good as the FWL’s Atreus-class.”

DeChevilier didn’t mention that getting the jump-drives working had mostly involved stripping out the Lithium-Fusion batteries that had been almost completely installed. Even the member-states had only a handful of ships fitted with that technology, but Richard had made a gift of it to Amaris.

Grec nodded. The Atreus-class were the only battleships built by the member-states that had ever seriously challenged the Terran Hegemony’s domination of naval affairs. Immense fortunes had been spent upgrading the Monsoon-class and Farragut-class ships that made up the backbone of the Hegemony’s might and it arguably wasn’t until the Edict of 2650 forced many of the ships into mothballs that Terran ship-builders had got over their (probably excessive) alarm. “That won’t hurt.”

.o0O0o.

Army Group Eleven Headquarters, New Rhodes III
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
24 December 2769

The handover of command hadn’t been rushed by either of them men involved. DeChevilier needed to re-establish familiarity with soldiers and spacers who he’d not seen for years. As a matter of courtesy, he’d also asserted that the final military operation of the year, Nineteenth Army’s liberation of Hamal, should be completed before he took over.

“He’s bending over backwards to make it clear you’re not being replaced for dereliction,” Hanse said cynically as they exited the elevator that carried them down to the level of the base holding formal ballroom where the ceremony would take place.

“Mm.” John wasn’t really complaining. He’d gone to Hamal himself to get a first-hand look at what was happening on the ground. What he’d seen had haunted him at night ever since. “It’ll be good to get back to New Avalon,” he murmured, words that anyone listening could write off as spoken to himself.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you.” The redhead seemed genuinely contrite. “Amaris had his claws deeper than I’d realised.”

‘Patriot Battalions’ had made up the core of the resistance to General Greene’s forces, but the worst of it had been ordinary Hegemony citizens who’d listened to Amaris’ claims that he’d ended Cameron tyranny. SLDF troopers hardened by fighting in the Taurian Concordat had been dumb-founded to find themselves facing the same sort of guerrilla fighting on a Hegemony world. Dumb-founded, but furious.

It had been hard for John and Greene to restrain their subordinates from responding brutally. Under the laws of war, they would have been completely justified in executing the guerrilla fighters as illegal combatants and more than a few outraged regiment or battalion commanders had started doing exactly that.

‘Didn’t they realise that we’re here to liberate them?’ they’d protested.

The only answer John could find for them was: ‘Then we must act like it.’ Fourteen very able officers had been reduced in rank over the issue before it was grudgingly accepted that only the leaders of such groups would face trial and, if convicted, the noose. Their followers were disarmed, interned and – well, John hoped they could be released after the world settled down. That wouldn’t be his decision though.

There was going to be a legacy of trouble on that world, and so many others. Neighbouring communities had begun to feud over the sides they’d taken and that was a poison that could take a long time to leach out of local politics.

“Sire.” A trim officer in AFFS uniform drew himself up, three broad bands marking the black epaulette that marked him as a naval officer.

“Admiral Jones.” The newly-minted vice-admiral had been serving as John’s aide since the last of his command returned to the Suns for reassignment and in the case of the one badly battered cruiser judged salvageable, for an extended stay in dock once a yard slip was available. “Looking forward to going home?”

“Home is a somewhat flexible term for naval personnel, sir. It’ll be nice to remind my wife of what I look like.”

Hanse chuckled. “Assuming she hasn’t seen him in the media.”

“Well you do have some leave coming.” John walked down the hall, Jones falling in behind him. “Your people took steep losses in Al Na’ir and Nirasaki. I hope I’m able to make it worthwhile.”

“They also won, sir. And more than that, they had your trust. It’s been almost two hundred years since the Navy’s been able to hold its head up as a fighting service… but you gave us that back.”

John paused and looked at the moustachioed Admiral. “The fighting won’t be over soon. Not even covering supply lines.”

“I suspect that some of my fellow officers will remember that decision too. And that it wasn’t you who made it.”

“Glory isn’t worth the price.”

“Something must be, or we shouldn’t be out there. And respectfully, sire, that part is your job.”

“I stand corrected Admiral.” They paused at the door. “You’re up for a staff posting, so I expect I’ll be seeing you again once you’re back from leave. Admiral Goto’s retirement will mean another shuffle of the naval staff.”

“Are you thinking Rike Moore’s old job at the Navy Design Bureau?” asked Hanse shrewdly. “It’s normally a Rear Admiral’s billet but with the Robinson refits and now these new capital ships, the job’s grown.”

“I have a position in mind for you,” John continued smoothly. “But we can deal with that once you’re back from leave.”

The double doors were flung open before them and a regimental band began to play. They’d been brought from the Capellan Confederation’s SLDF garrison, just one component amid twelve almost fresh divisions. Barbara Liao’s declaration of support for Kerensky had freed up Fifth Army to despatch two of its three Corps to reinforce Army Group Eleven and a similar drawdown of the SLDF deployments in the Federated Suns would leave only two Corps to guard the training facilities and factories that SLDF logistics depended upon. But those fresh troops were going to be needed now that Kerensky’s own Army Group Thirteen was positioned to form a second pincer.

John had rarely seen someone more relieved than Aaron DeChevilier when he discovered that the Corps that would remain within the Capellan Confederation would be XXIV Corps, in which his daughter Angela was serving. Her brother Roger had died fighting in the Outworlds Alliance and the general’s younger children – if they were still alive – were on Terra with their mother.

Who knew what had happened to them? The most that could be said for hope was that Amaris had made no attempt to use them as hostages against DeChevilier.

The hall was thronged with officers. A handful of helmeted men and women in the light grey of Capellan dress uniforms, the liaison officers DeChevilier had demanded even though the main force of the CCAF’s contribution would be placed under Kerensky’s command stood apart in a single block. But most of those present wore the olive of the SLDF and the dark green uniforms and golden half-breastplates of AFFS uniforms stood out intermingled among the olive.

“Commander, Army Group Eleven: General John Davion!” a sergeant major announced loudly and around the room several hundred men and women came to attention, snapping salutes.

John hesitated, having barely reached one of the points of the great Cameron Star that had been laser-cut into the floor, every groove filled with coloured glass and the whole then polished until it was mirror-smooth, flush against the floor. He was no stranger to formal occasions but this one was off-script. He’d been expecting a simpler announcement, alongside DeChevilier at the podium, before the necessary speeches framing the exchange of command. Also they’d given the wrong rank.

Alright, things happened. He returned the salute and finished crossing the floor. Hanse, unburdened by any need for decorum, sprinted ahead to where Aaron DeChevilier was waiting near the podium. He stared at something out of John’s sight and then gave him an approving thumbs up, stepping aside to join the front ranks of the crowd.

“General Davion.” DeChevilier said, eyes twinkling with rare humour. “Right on time. But you’re setting a very poor example to your juniors.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that,” he replied warily.

“I should think so too. An officer of the Star League Defense Force must always be suitably attired.”

John shot him a suspicious look. “While I would be very much honoured to be an officer of the Star League Defense Force, I’m fairly confident I’m wearing the uniform of the Federated Suns.”

“I’m pleased you feel that way, General Davion.” DeChevilier lifted two items from behind the podium, a SLDF officer’s cap and a sash. John had seen thousands like them; every SLDF soldier’s dress uniform included a sash with a specific pattern to mark their homeworld. This one represented New Avalon.

He wouldn’t! Kerensky would have had to give the orders and… and this was ridiculous… Was Hanse laughing? No, the bastard was cheering and whistling.

“John Davion of New Avalon.” The Deputy Commanding General was still smiling but more seriously now. “On the recommendation of no less than five flag officers of the SLDF and with the express endorsement of Commanding General Aleksandr Sergeyvich Kerensky, it is my great privilege to commission you into the SLDF with the rank of General, effective 8 November 2767.”

“I…” Words failed John and he mutely allowed the sash to be slipped over his head and shoulder. The three stars of a SLDF General were pinned to it, since they could hardly be pinned to the metal of his half-breastplate. Accepting the cap he donned it, hoping it was suitably straight. AFFS uniforms didn’t include headgear.

DeChevilier gave him a careful look and then nodded approvingly. “Now that’s more like it.” He turned to the podium and indicated John. “My fellow officers, I present General John Davion of the SLDF.”

Even more than the salutes, the applause that filled the room lifted John’s spirits. I can’t have done so very poorly if they’re willing to do that.

“Traditionally, a newly minted SLDF general is offered a command ‘Mech,” DeChevilier murmured under the sound of the crowd. “Gunslingers usually decline; we’re too attached to our usual rides. General Kerensky sent the Cyclops he was offered back in ’31 and hopes you’ll accept it as a mark of the esteem he holds you in.”

John nodded and as the clapping died down he shook DeChevilier’s hand. The other man ushered him forwards and, taking the podium, John glanced down at the cues for the speech he’d been expecting to make. It wouldn’t really work after this.

Instead he looked out at the assembled officers. “I’ve been told, more than once, that there’s no greater privilege for an officer than to have soldiers follow them. Eight years ago, when I first experienced military command I thought that I understood those words. It was not until I came here twelve months ago that I appreciated the true weight of them…”

[alkemita]

That last part with John Davion's commissioning into the SLDF was awesome and heartwarming. Also melancholy. And there seems to be an unusual amount of dust in the air here...

Well done, mate. Look forward to more.

[Daryk]

Well done indeed!  And Hanse's response was hilarious!

Also, I'm very pleased to see Admiral Jones was on the Aegis that survived Al Na'ir.  I was worried from the moment he'd been assigned to the Willie!

[mikecj]

Wonderfully written as ever!

[idea weenie]

A final bleep-you to the drone, and the Capellans are realizing what is going on while being self-aware to recognize their own issue.  This could make the Capellans much more dangerous in the future.

True about 'liberating' people who thought they had already been liberated.  Hopefully Blake and some of his techs can get a viral video planted in an HPG feed, that shows Amaris' rise as dictator and how he has been deceiving people.  It will make Amaris angrier at the Terran Hegemony worlds, but it will at least give people an idea of what is really going on.  And for those that doubt, watching Amaris deploy occupation troops will help them believe.

[drakensis]

SLS Sevastapol, Lockdale
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
17 January 2770

It had been more than eighteen years since Janos Grec had been aboard a warship heading into harm’s way. The heavy cruiser Sevastapol had already had some of the most advanced electronics of any ships in the SLDF – the Sovetskii Soyuz class post-dated the Caspar drones, after all. Now she and two of her sister ships had been crammed full of hundreds of thousands of tons of additional systems, their clean lines ruined with hundreds of antennae.

If the systems failed then the Star League Navy was going to have one hell of a fight on its hands. Lockdale was a provincial capital and in addition to M-3 and M-5 drones, it was known that there were thousands of automated fighters and a considerable number of orbital stations to support the drones’ activities.

“I wish we had those carriers,” he mused.

Admiral Belleau nodded. “It would have been my preference too, but orders are orders.”

“Almost four hundred more fighters…” Grec shook his head.

“And thirty shuttles for search and rescue,” the admiral agreed. “But we’d have to assign them escorts because the General is right about what happened to the other FSN ships. Other than a few ships, it’s a fleet of relics. Brave crews, but relics.”

“Not so many of those relics now,” conceded Grec.

Ahead of the combined forces of Nineteenth and Twentieth Fleet, the Republicans had assembled their drones around Lockdale itself. Unlike Al Na’ir, where there had been thousands of outlying mining operations to secure, here the prize was the world itself and so the defenders had concentrated their forces there, knowing that they would force any invaders to pay a heavy price for trying to liberate the heavily industrialised world.

“Will those ships work?” the younger Admiral asked seriously. “I don’t mean their effect,” he added hastily. “I know there’s no way to test that except in practise. But there won’t be another St Lo?”

Grec grimaced. There had been four prototypes for the systems that had been developed for what was called Project NIKE. SLS St Lo had been the first cruiser to have them installed. After leaving docks she’d gone to a space firing range in the outer reaches of the Kathil system and turned the jammers on, testing their effects without having to worry about causing billions of damage to civilian systems around the shipyards.

Thirty minutes later, Grec had received a signal from a lifeboat. The irate captain of the St Lo had been unable to use his ship’s own transmitters because the prototype systems had overloaded the entire electrical grid and forced the drives into emergency shutdown. The cruiser had had to be towed back to dock and the repairs would take months.

“I’m fairly sure we’ve solved that. We tried the systems on these three ships the same way and we didn’t have the same problems.” Which didn’t mean the systems were easy on the ships. Temperature spikes and temporary loss of some systems continued – nothing as devastating but the enormous power needed to counter the electronic warfare systems of the drones couldn’t help but to have secondary effects on even shielded military electronics that were a few tens or hundreds of metres away rather than thousands of kilometres.

“I hope you’re right. Anyway, we’re seeing movement from the enemy fleet now. Looks as if they’re going to be moving out to engage before we reach orbit. Good luck, Admiral.”

“Good luck to you.”

The screen went dark and Grec went back to dealing with the thousand and one issues that plagued his little squadron. He felt a distinct nostalgia for the days when he was just a wing commander and responsible only for his own life and a few score more fighter pilots out in space, chasing down unidentified raiders.

They weren’t the good old days, he told himself. Someone was having to worry about all this back then too. It’s just that now it’s my turn.

.o0O0o.

It was impossible to count the drones.

Too many drive flares in too dense a formation, ships moving back and confusing the count.

The best guess was a little shy of four hundred Caspars, more than twice as many – possibly three times as many – M-3 drones. The most that could reliably be said about the number of Voidseeker fighters is that some were definitely there.

Belleau and Caradan, the commander of Twentieth Fleet, had formed an aggressive formation. There were no transports with them – that lesson had been learned. Their one mission was to eradicate the drones. Landing troops and destroying the surface weapon batteries wasn’t even open to consideration while the Caspars and their escorts were still a threat.

“An old fashioned slugging match,” Grec noted grimly. The enemy vessels couldn’t absorb damage as well as crewed ships – however vulnerable individual crew-members might be, it was surprisingly difficult to destroy the crew of ship unless the entire hull came apart. The automated internals of an M-5 drone couldn’t carry out repairs that the crew of an equivalent destroyer considered routine.

Of course, off-setting that was the fact that the drones packed considerably more firepower than their size suggested.

“They’re beginning to enter the estimated range.”

“Wait,” he said quietly. Old instincts were beginning to sing. The enemy weren’t committed yet.

A wing of drones slashed down at the flank of the formation. At least a hundred M-3 drones, packed so tightly the tactical display suggested that a man could practically reach out from one and touch the next. Ridiculous of course, there were scores of kilometres between the hulls.

Well before the drones reached the effective range of their weapons, a division of destroyers had moved up and brought their particle turrets to bear. At this range they didn’t hit reliably and few of the shots that did strike killed the heavily armoured drones. But many of the hits were crippling, punching through armour to damage vital systems. As drones lost drives, sensors or occasionally even fuel tanks (without oxygen inside crew compartments it wouldn’t burn, but the leaks tended to act like reaction thrusters) the formation had to open their ranks to avoid collisions.

More weapons were opening up now – no one wished to empty their ready magazines with low probability shots this early in the battle so mostly lasers and particle beams. Forced out of their tight formations, the M-3 drones bored on sacrificially, intent on testing the SLDF defences even if it was at the expense of their own existences.

Achilles and Pentagon dropships of the screening force began to manoeuvre to avoid fire from the drones and return their own fire. Nibbling at each other, shots rarely enough for a kill on each other, the dropships and drones exchanged shots as the range closed.

Sevastapol was the closest of the NIKE-ships to the attack and Grec nodded. “Clear to engage with turrets, captain.”

Each broadside of the cruiser had two double turrets mounting PPCs and a triple turret with lasers. Where possible, the gunners went for damaged ships. Every ship unable to maintain thrust was one more that couldn’t ram.

“Sir, we could jam them.”

“And let them know we’re prepared for that? No, they might figure out a counter. Wait for the main force to engage.”

Finally the dropships reached the engagement range of the battleships behind the Sevastapol. For all the furious power of their capital autocannon, what made the Texas- and McKenna-class deadly were the twenty-four energy turrets along their broadsides. Every salvo that hit blew almost effortlessly through the drones.

At last confident that they could fend off this attack and replenishing ready magazines before engaging another attack, the destroyers began to open up with their autocannon and missile tubes. The M-3 drones’ numbers were cut by a half, then to a third. A wing of fighters armed with nukes made a fast pass, more than fifty aerospace fighters entering the fracturing formation and no more than thirty escaping… but twelve more drones died.

More salvos from the battleships and the surviving M-3 drones were cut apart. For a moment it seemed that none would survive… and that was certainly true but two at least broke through the fire and closed on SLS Wessex. The destroyer’s bow autocannon turret shredded one but the second rammed directly into the Wessex’s navigation bridge. The destroyer emerged from the debris, nose blunted and flanks trailing incidental scratches from the impact.

The damage done was a small return on the loss of more than a hundred drones… except that now the drones knew what they were facing and their computers were calculating how to counter the SLDF’s advantages.

Within minutes the drones were moving again and this time it wasn’t just a single wing.

This time they came like a tide, or perhaps a kraken of the deeps. The M-3 drones spread out, forcing the SLDF to spread their attention rather than focusing on the packs of M-5s moving up behind them.

“All ships,” Grec ordered quietly. “Divide up and move to support one cruiser squadron each. Wait until the M-5s are at least in effective range of our destroyers, then light them up. And don’t forget to spare the systems. They’re still fragile and they can burn out. If you have the time then shut them down and let the techs patch them up. If they’re on the edge of failing then do the same, better to lose ten minutes of coverage than the ability to provide any coverage at all.”

“We may not have time,” the captain of the Sevastapol warned.

“I know. And that’s why each ship is free to do so at their own discretion. I’m not going to micro-manage you and nor is anyone else. I am directly ordering you to preserve those systems even if squadron commanders are screaming at you not to shut down. You are the best judges of what your ships can take and I have General DeChevilier’s orders backing me up on this.” The admiral paused. “Whatever happens, the SLDF will smash the drones. We have the numbers for it. But if this works then far more ships will survive than we can expect otherwise. And that means keeping the jamming systems functional, not keeping them up 100% of the time. The lives of our fellow spacers are in our hands. And by my reckoning, they could not be in safer hands.”

One by one the captains saluted and then two of them winked out after Grec returned the gesture.

“Sir,” the captain offered, “If you’d prefer to observe the battle from the navigation bridge…”

“No, captain, although thank you for the courtesy. I have a whole squad of analysts to manage, trying to see if we can come up with better tactics to use. And you need to fight your ship, not worry about an old professor keeping his staff in line.”

“As you wish, admiral. Please be aware that you have the freedom of the bridge should you wish to make use of it.”

Grec nodded. “Duly noted, captain.” That was a kind gesture on the man’s part. In practical terms it would be a very bold captain who denied any flag officer access to any compartment, but it remained their right to so if the needs of the ship required it. To have that right pre-emptively waived was unexpected.

The attack – two attacks, really, for the SLDF force was moving aggressively itself – converged with spearheads of Caspars closing in towards the flanks. Most likely, Grec thought, they would be trying to weaken the escorting ships – the destroyers and frigates – rather than pressing in now. Thin the screening elements, keep the capital ships’ crews on edge and unable to rest. The killing blows would follow after hours had worn down the human minds behind the SLN’s ships. Computers would never weary.

For the moment Grec had freedom to observe, for Sevastapol had moved in response to an M-5 thrust that proved to be a feint. The other two NIKE-ships had each placed themselves to respond to what seemed to be the actual attacks though and the Caspars were closing towards the range he’d specified.

Initial shots were actually being fired before first one and then the second cruiser began jamming. The electronic signatures made it plain what they were doing but the behaviour of the Caspars would have given it away. Coordination broke up, restored, fractured again… ships that had been co-ordinating their fire with ruthless efficiency now scattered their fire across individual targets.

“Check which signals have the best effect,” Grec ordered as the analysts from his staff stared at the display in fascination. “Now!” he snapped when some didn’t take their eyes off it.

Like frightened animals the officers – engineers and scientists, some only holding military rank by courtesy – returned to their own consoles.

Grec shook his head but couldn’t help but sneak a long look himself as SDLF ships, now having the advantage of coordination over the drones, focused fire upon their adversaries. On one flank this wasn’t even a matter of targeting the Caspars themselves. Instead, freed of the immediate threat warships swept entire flotillas of M-3 drones aside so that fighter strikes could dive past without having to endure the massed fire of the escort drones and could deliver nuclear missiles to the Caspars.

All too soon though, the computers controlling the drones calculated the cause of this new circumstance. Even here the reactions weren’t uniform. Some drones increased or decreased their thrust, manoeuvring to try to find parts of the fleet that weren’t protected by the jamming fields.

Others found a new focus and goal. Seventeen M-3 drones and four M-5s shifted course and plunged headlong towards SLS Norfolk, the NIKE-ship in their sector.

“Cut the jammers,” Grec hissed under his breath. But he’d given the captain discretion so he didn’t transmit the order.

As he watched, the Norfolk twisted and turned, trying to evade the attackers and – sensibly – fall back among the battleships. Engaging the destroyer screen at close quarters as they passed, the M-3s were destroyed but the Caspars closed in and their bow guns ripped into the cruiser.

The jamming in the sector cut out in the same instant that the Norfolk ceased to manoeuvre or return fire.

“They’re intact,” one of the analysts noted. “Hurt, but that shouldn’t have crippled her.”

Grec tapped a control. “Captain, based on the Norfolk -” As he spoke escape pods were leaving the stricken cruiser. “- I recommend powering down the jammers before any heavy manoeuvring. I believe their power system overloaded.”

“Thank you for the information, sir.”

The Caspars managed a follow up salvo, now returning to their previous co-ordination that tore the Norfolk apart, autocannon shells breaking through the hull and smashing the structural members that held the centre of the ship together.

“There are twenty escape pods on the Norfolk and I think they all got away,” the analyst said with relief.

Grec decided not to tell the man that twenty pods would carry, at most, one hundred and twenty people. A Sovetskii Soyuz class heavy cruiser’s crew was over three hundred and full evacuation required use of shuttles. And without power to open the shuttle-bay doors…

“We’ll need more NIKE-equipped ships in future,” he observed instead. “Isolated ships are points of failure.” But the death of Norfolk and two destroyers had cost the Republicans more than twenty M-5 drones and at least five times that in M-3s.

As a kill ratio, that was far more acceptable than the losses at Al Na’ir. “We have our proof of concept,” he continued. “Now we need to work out the bugs so we can do this consistently.”

.o0O0o.

SLS McKenna’s Pride, Mizar
Federation of Skye, Lyran Commonwealth
18 February 2770

“What do you mean you’re not attacking Summer?” hissed Robert Steiner. “It’s perfectly placed to launch raids into the Commonwealth. It’s only two jumps from Skye itself!”

“And a single jump from my base of operations here,” Aleksandr Kerensky agreed calmly. “However, as much as I regret the circumstances, that has been the case for three years now. Have Amaris’ forces raided into the Commonwealth heavily? Or at all?”

“You know they haven’t,” the Archon exclaimed. “But that was before half the SLDF was mustering on my worlds, without so much as a by your leave. Naturally he’ll want to target your supply lines.”

“Under the Star League Accords, the SLDF has freedom to move its forces through any member-state without notice. I recall no such complaints when we were moving to protect your worlds from ‘bandits operating out of the Draconis Combine and Free Worlds League’.” By dint of great practise, the Commanding General kept a straight face when describing the border raiders everyone knew but could not prove were being carried out by deniable assets of the House Lords. House Steiner was no less guilty of that than the others.

He made a dismissive gesture. “In any case, Eleventh Army will remain within the Commonwealth to defend our supply lines. You may rest assured that with four Corps stationed along your borders, there are ample forces to also extend our protection to your people should Amaris be so bold as to commit an act of war against the Lyran Commonwealth.”

“I demand that you remove the Usurper’s bases along the border,” piped up Duke Lestrade indignantly.

Kerensky eyed the Duke of Skye as if he was a particularly impudent insect. Aldo Lestrade II’s bulging eyes and long, sweeping moustaches suggested something with mandibles. “Demand?”

“In the absence of a First Lord…”

“While I personally see little hope that Richard Cameron lives -” That poor, stupid boy. “- there is yet no confirmation of his death. Naturally, I hope for co-operative relationships with the Council Lords until the situation is resolved.”

There was a pause as the Lyrans parsed that sentence. No one could describe Robert Steiner’s relationship with Kerensky as co-operative.

“Do you intend a direct strike at Terra then?” Robert asked more civilly. “To bring Amaris to justice immediately.”

“Regrettably that is not yet feasible. The worlds around Terra are heavily fortified, many of them with large forces of drone warships. Moving them between systems is not a trivial affair, fortunately, but given the immense scale of Terran defences, it would take at least a year to liberate the homeworld, and much of the SLDF’s strength would have to be committed to the operation, allowing more than enough time for Amaris’ officers to gather up a vast fleet of drones, potentially thousands strong, that could grind the SLDF between a mobile force and the defences of Terra.”

“I see, but there are strong forces of drones over Summer – and at Zollikofen and Lone Star. Surely defeating them in detail would make sense as a first step.”

Kerensky nodded. “In good time. Rest assured that the forces on those worlds are merely receiving a stay of execution.”

Janos Grec’s own vessel was the only one of the three NIKE-ships to have survived the battle of Lockdale, but fewer than fifty SLN warships had been destroyed in all, thanks to the jamming. Fourth Army was still heavily engaged upon the surface, but armed with data gathered in the battle, shipyards in the Rim Worlds Republic and Federated Suns were already preparing more ships to house more compact systems, systems that would hopefully prove just as effective without exposing the vessels to crippling themselves simply by activating the jamming systems.

That would take time though, which was why Army Group Thirteen would be launching a three pronged attack on worlds that lacked heavy defences. Stefan Amaris would be given the choice between holding his forces back behind SDS systems and within Castles Brian, which would allow Kerensky to liberate twenty worlds, five of them on the edges of the core province, or to send ships and regiments out to be engaged under far more favourable terms to the SLDF.

The Terran Hegemony was shaped like an irregular diamond, shorter edges bordering the Lyrans and the Free Worlds League, longer edges bordering the Draconians and Capellans. The Federated Suns’ border with the Hegemony was the furthest tip of that diamond from Terra itself. As such, despite the herculean efforts of Joan Brandt and John Davion, Army Group Eleven was really no closer to the mother world than Kerensky’s own Army Group was.

Not to deny their efforts, he reminded himself. Billions of Hegemony citizens have been freed from Amaris’ tyranny.

“I suppose I have little choice but to acquiesce,” the Archon concluded, grudgingly. “Be assured though, I will hold you accountable for any damage done to worlds of the Commonwealth.”

“I can assure you, Archon, that the thought you might not hadn’t crossed my mind.”

As the Archon and his lickspittle were escorted courteously away from his office, Kerensky dismissed them from his mind and checked his message queue. Nothing from Aaron yet. Not surprising, given communications across Blake’s network of HPG stations remained a thin web across the Hegemony. To avoid notice, the stations transmitted only cautiously.

Somewhere on the far side of the Hegemony, Third Army were launching their attacks on Errai and Small World, pinning down troops that might otherwise be moved to support Lockdale’s defences.

The general’s eyes strayed to the map of the Hegemony, singling out a single star system no more than two jumps away from Mizar. Using its Lithium Fusion battery, the McKenna’s Pride could have him in the system by the end of the day.

“Katyusha,” he murmured, before iron discipline snapped back into place and he returned to the day-to-day affairs of managing five armies – a hundred and fourteen divisions – as well as the sprawling lines of supply and communication that trailed back to the edges of the Star League, consuming the resources of three more armies just to adequately secure them.

[drakensis]

Crimson Springs, Lockdale
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
1 March 2770

The Demon fired its Gauss Rifle and Ethan Moreau saw the slug smash through the armour over the Culverin’s right track, immobilising the fighting vehicle as it tried to turn around and bring its autocannon to bear.

With a cry of frustration, the Mechwarrior scrambled his ‘Mech up and over the ruins that had once been an apartment block, entering the street behind the wheeled Demon.

The Republican tank tried to reverse around him, but Ethan brought the Orion’s foot forward, hooking it under the edge of the side-armour. Raising the flat foot upwards, he forced the Demon up, throwing all the weight of his ‘Mech into the pivot.

Seventy-five tons of ‘Mech overpowered sixty tons of tank and the Demon rolled, the turret smashing open the glass front of the shop on the side of the road. The mass was too much for his gyro though and Ethan’s eyes widened as he realised he was past the point of no return. His Orion crashed down on its back.

“Ow.”

“Moreau, I could kiss you,” Pritchard yelled over the comms.

“Promises, promises.”

“Or Johann could, whatever floats your boat.”

“No, no I’m fine.” He braced the elbows of the Orion and started to right himself. “So why the effusions of gratitude? You didn’t take that much damage, did you?”

“It’s a Demon!” the armor officer explained. “And it’s basically intact.”

“Oh, of course.” ****** treadheads. And they said Mechwarriors were in love with their rides. “Charlie Company, rally on my position.”

There were confirmations across the radio as the ‘Mechs of his company worked their way through the city towards him. Gleason was dead, a gauss slug from another Demon had taken the head off his Orion. Chapman’s Orion was also down for the count but he’d managed to eject before the SRM ammunition bin’s detonation had blown a hole through the left side of his fusion bottle. Now he joined forces with Pritchard’s crew as they disembarked from their crippled Culverin and made their way towards the Demon.

Tiger-Free was in one of the Guillotines that filled out the company and she was able to jump through the worst of the wreckage, joining Ethan in threatening the Demon’s crew once he was upright again.

With a pair of heavy ‘Mechs menacing them, the Republican soldiers decided discretion was the better part of valour and disembarked, surrendering the vehicle to the tankers.

“Could you roll it back onto its wheels?” the lieutenant asked pleasantly as Ranson rushed back to the Culverin, returning with two spray cans of paint and a plastic stencil.

Ethan shook his head. “You’re going to keep fighting in a Republican vehicle?”

“We’ll paint some SLDF markings on it,” she assured him.

“I’m not sure we can, actually,” he admitted. Neither of the two ‘Mechs left in his command lance had hand actuators. In fact, as the two surviving ‘Mechs of his second lance moved up, he reflected that not one of the seven ‘Mechs left in Charlie Company had hands. Hooker’s Thug had been the only one that did, but the Lyran volunteer – a Nagelring graduate who’d deserted to join the SLDF in ’68 – had lost his Thug to a knee-capping by infantry the previous day and right now he was back in the regimental cantonment, waiting for a replacement.

“Oh come on, you kicked it over once. How hard can it be?”

“Well, I don’t suppose we’re worse off if we try.” He moved the Orion up against the wall of the building, Tiger-Free doing the same on the other side. Bracing one weapon arm each on the building (Ethan winced as a window broke) they each lifted a foot and carefully placed it against the upper edge of the Demon.

Just as they were about to push, Ethan saw movement behind Tiger-Free’s ‘Mech. “Look out!”

The other ‘Mechwarrior hesitated just a little too long and a PPC bolt smashed squarely into her rear armour. Laser fire followed, lighting up the smoky air of the city, and seventy-tons of ‘Mech crashed down onto the Demon.

The perpetrator was a Black Knight, a sleeker and more advanced ‘Mech than Ethan’s Orion, although about the same size. There were three of them in fact, another pair stalking into view and firing not at him but the fallen and vulnerable Tiger-Free. The advanced sensor probe fitted to Black Knights gave them an advantage in the confines of the city where magnetics and infra-red were almost useless.

“Hostiles sighted!” Ethan yelled, moving up to shield the fallen Mech with his Orion. He’d taken damage already but he could weather the storm of fire better than she could.

“On our way, sir!”

“Third lance,” he ordered, settling his crosshairs over the chest of the first Black Knight. “Move up the next street and outflank them.” The range was too close for his LRMs, but lasers, SRMs and autocannon blazed away, warming his cockpit and carving into the rounded armour plating covering the Black Knight.

In return the Black Knight’s large lasers battered at him. The initial salvos must have pushed their heat to the limit, forcing them to hold back some of their armament.

“I’m okay, sir.” Tiger-Free’s Guillotine struggled upright as second lance joined them. The Demon wound up back on its wheels as the seventy-tonner extricated itself. Unfortunately for Pritchard, the turret had been torn half-loose from the chassis as well.

A second volley of lasers set Ethan staggering. His autocannon loaded its last clip of ammunition as one leg buckled, knee half-severed. The young Mechwarrior speared the left arm of his Orion into the building, holding himself upright but taking the laser and the missile launcher in the arm out of play. He fired the autocannon and was pleased to see the shots tearing gaping holes into the Black Knight. Coolant flowed out from the penetrations like blood until valves closed off the ruptured piping.

The three Guillotines moved forward to close the distance – like the Black Knights they had formidable laser batteries most effective at short ranges. From around a corner, missiles and autocannon tracer began to flay the right-most Black Knight, severing one arm above the elbow.

Alright, we have this, he thought.

With an obnoxious blare, his radio sprang to life. “All stations, this is 225th Command. Code Charlie Omega. I repeat, Charlie Omega. Seal all hatches. Dismounted infantry mask up. Code Charlie Omega.”

Colour drained from Ethan’s face as he heard the warning of a chemical attack. Crimson Springs had had a population of over a million. The best estimate was that less than a quarter of them had evacuated and while there were sealed shelters for civil defence, they dated back to the twenty-fourth century and intel had reported Rim infantry using them as bunkers.

Scanning his surroundings he saw Pritchard’s crew had rushed back into their Culverin, dragging Chapman with them.

“Sir.” Tiger-Free’s voice was unnervingly calm. “My cockpit glass broke when I took that fall. I have negative seal.”

“Christ.” Ethan looked around for something, anything she could get into.

“Just give me some room.”

Tiger-Free’s Guillotine jumped towards the three Republican heavies. The Mech was off-balance, arms flailing wildly – she must have taken her hands off the controls.

Not even a city’s clutter could disguise the rapidly rising infra-red signature of the ‘Mech as it crashed down among the Black Knights, face to face with one of them.

The first explosion within was the SRM ammunition, tearing the Guillotine open at the waist. Cold city air rushed into the chest and encountered the reactor, building maximum power with all safeties off. The explosion had shredded the reactor shielding and seconds later the superheated air rushed out.

All four ‘Mechs vanished in the fireball of Tiger-Free’s funeral pyre.

.o0O0o.

Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
12 April 2770

“John, please turn that off. We need to talk.”

No husband wants to hear those words and John took them seriously, stopping the opera playing on the wall and rising to greet Edwina.

Hanse also stood. “I know when I’d be a third wheel,” he observed, stepping around the oblivious Edwina. “See you in the morning, John.”

Edwina let John kiss her cheek and then gestured to the chairs. “This might take a while.”

“I’ve always got time for you.”

“When I remind you, yes.”

“What?” he asked, thinking back over the last few days. Had he done anything to spark this? “I don’t understand.”

“That may not have come out right,” she conceded. “John, when was the last time you took a break?”

“Well I’m not working now.”

Edwina reached over and put her hand on the noteputer beside John’s chair. “So this is just loaded with recreational material? Not, for example, reports on the war? Or the refugee situation?”

The prince spread his hands slightly in surrender. “Just in case something came to mind.”

“Really.” She lifted her hand and cupped his cheek. “John, I don’t think you’ve taken two straight days off to rest since the coup. And not one since you went to New Rhodes more than a year ago! You’re burning yourself out.”

John frowned. That wasn’t right, was it? He’d… well, what was the last time he’d scheduled a break from his responsibilities? Nothing came to mind since news of Brandt’s death at Al Na’ir. Possibly not for a while before that, honestly. “The fact I have to think about it supports your position,” he conceded. “But with so much to do, it’s not really a good time for me to take a vacation. The work isn’t going to go away?”

“And who’s going to do it if you work yourself to the point of collapse?” she countered. “I’m worried about you. This war… perhaps longer than that. When you became Prince I knew you’d be burdened but now you act as if the full weight of the entire Star League is on your shoulders, as if only you can save it… I want Joshua’s children to have a grandfather who can spoil them, not a mausoleum they visit sometimes.”

“Children? Is he seeing someone seriously?”

Edwina shook her head. “You even missed that? He’s courting the representative from Delphos – remember he introduced her to you.”

“I thought he was doing that because we’re family,” he replied in surprise. He had some recollection of the young woman, she’d seemed quite self-possessed. The sort of… Hanse’s amusement when John had mentioned that he hoped Joshua found someone like that to take an interest with suddenly fell into place. “Isn’t she married to Thomas Halder-Davion?” They’d agreed early on that the personal history of the next few generations of House Davion were off limits. He didn’t want to spend the rest his life counting down the days of his loved one’s lives.

“Thomas is Mary’s brother, John.”

He could imagine the chagrin on his face. “Oh. It’s a good thing I haven’t really spoken to her then. Not that I don’t want to talk to the young woman in our son’s life but…”

Edwina left her seat and knelt in front of him, taking his hands in hers. “The war isn’t going to end soon,” she told him sympathetically. “There are going to be more battles, more refugees and – God help us – more atrocities like Lockdale. That’s not your fault and it’s not your responsibility alone.” She smiled fondly. “I know better than to try to persuade you it’s not your responsibility at all.”

“I saw it coming,” John told her, the words bubbling out of him. “I tried to stop it, I tried to stop him. God, I sent an assassin after Amaris. And it’s not enough. It’s never enough. I look at the reports from the Hegemony and all I can think of is that if the League falls then our people will suffer the same way.”

He bent over in anguish and his wife enfolded him in her arms. “Oh John!”

They remained like that, half in and half out of the chair, until his breath steadied and he could bear to look her in the eyes again.

What he saw wasn’t condemnation but simply acceptance. “John, you can’t do this to yourself,” she murmured, pushing him lightly to shuffle aside in the chair. It wasn’t really large enough for two adults but they made it work somehow. “How long have you been bottling this up inside?”

“I… Demeter was the start.”

“Yes, that would make sense.” She rested her cheek against his shoulder. “Before then I could persuade you that rest meant more than cutting your workload to just two or three pieces of business.”

John snorted despite himself. He wasn’t that bad. Or at least he hadn’t been. More recently, perhaps. “I realised then that it wasn’t just that the Star League couldn’t act to save one of us if we were attacked, the Star League couldn’t save itself. Not without a Council willing to put the whole above our individual ambitions. Their… our hatreds.”

“You worked with Takiro to try to rein Richard in. That must have been hard.”

“Richard wasn’t the problem. We left him to be spoiled by his servants and alone for Amaris to get his claws into the boy. Simon died trying to remind us of how much the Star League mattered and he was barely buried before we forgot all about him.”

“You never forgot, John. Don’t say that. I remember how shocked you were at the news. Before then maybe. You put your people first when you took the throne. And after Simon died you threw your support behind Kerensky more than any of the other Lords.” Edwina still had his hands between her smaller ones. “And it’s working. Chancellor Liao has sent soldiers to support the SLDF. Kerensky is smashing every attempt that Amaris makes to retake the worlds being liberated.”

“And worlds still burn.”

“I know.” Lockdale was a dying world. The chemical agents unleashed on the SLDF spearheads hadn’t been the only damage done, or even the worst. Nuclear attacks on the factories that made the world valuable had sent clouds of radioactive dust soaring into the atmosphere. Between that and the aftermath of the chemicals, there was no longer enough farmland to feed even the diminished population – and it might be decades before that could be undone.

A trickle of refugees from the affected regions had become a flood as people saw the writing on the wall and tried to get their families – their children – to safety before exposure built up to dangerous levels. The refugees from the cities hit directly would be the last to be evacuated from the camps SLDF engineers had established for them. If any of them lived long enough, for even thousands of jumpships would take years to ferry the remaining populace away.

The remaining worlds of the Hegemony couldn’t absorb that sort of influx so John had opened the doors of the Suns. Spread across hundreds of worlds, some of them raw colonies desperate for labour, the Lockdalites could be accommodated – with the Suns’ industries struggling to not only supply the SLDF but also to replace tooling and machinery that they’d relied on Hegemony firms to build and maintain, the industrial workers would be welcomed.

But they wouldn’t be the last. They weren’t even the latest. Outnumbered by the SLDF, the Rim Worlds forces were fighting with vicious fury, heedless of the collateral damage. Or perhaps even courting it, knowing that every regiment providing relief to the civilian population was one that wasn’t shooting at them.

“If the Star League falls, then all the horrors on Hamal, on Lockdale… they’ll be here too. How can they not see that?” he whispered. “How can they all be so blind?”

“They won’t. Our worlds won’t suffer that,” she assured him. “You’ll see to that. But you need all your strength for that. All the brilliance – no, I’m not exaggerating. I know what the predictions were for the economy after the Hegemony’s trade was lost and you’ve steered us out of that disaster. All that, and your heart too. But you can’t do it alone, John. Let us in. Let me, Joshua, let us help you. Trust us, as we trust you, to carry our loads so that you can rest at times.”

John turned to look down at her, feeling her hair brushing against his chin. “I’ll try.”

Edwina squeezed his hands. “Come to bed and rest, love.”

“Alright.” He looked past her at the noteputer for a moment. “Just one thing.”

“John,” she said warningly.

He smiled and kissed her brow. “A message for Owen when he gets in tomorrow. To clear a day of my schedule sometime soon. I’m not sure I’m up to a week off yet, but perhaps I can work up to it.”

[mikecj]

Two great pieces, thank you.

Love the armor crews reaction to the Demon

[Zureal]

damn... epic funeral pyre  :'(

[drakensis]

Brockton, North America
Terra, Terran Hegemony
14 May 2770

Ellen Davis didn’t pay much attention to the bell at the door of the bakery. It was a mark of the old world charm that her employer sought for the store that the store had a hinged door with a bell that rang to signal a customer’s arrival rather than an automatic sliding door like most shops in Brockton’s small shopping district.

The young woman was fully engaged in kneading dough. The bakery didn’t sell mass-produced loaves, like a general store or a supermarket. Every loaf was made fresh on site, which accounted for the significantly higher prices. What little Ellen’s school economics course she recalled had at first left her wondering how the shop survived.

Then she’d met the clientele and understood. The upwardly-aspiring families of Brockton, many of them commuting daily into one of the great urban metropolises of the East Coast, had their own brand of snobbery. Fresh bread, hand-made the same day it was eaten, was as much a mark of status as it was a foodstuff for them.

“Ellen.” James Baker was well-named for his trade. “Your young man’s here.”

She blinked, looked around and saw Dean standing on the other side of the counter. “Dean?”

He waved one hand. “I thought we could lunch together,” he offered. “I know I’m a little early but I’ve a picnic basket in the car.”

“Ah, to be young,” Baker laughed.

“I’m kind of in the middle -” Ellen protested, holding up her floury hands.

Her boss shook his head. “I think I can manage,” he assured her. “I know you’ve been pulling extra hours to cover for Diana while her sister’s ill, so take some time back for yourself.” Baker looked up at the clock – outside of Ellen’s view. “Take a long lunch today,” he told her. “Just be back for two. Mrs White will be here, and you know she loves those west coast manners of yours.”

Ellen shrugged in defeat. “Just let me wash up.” She headed for the sink.

Behind her – the store was open plan – she heard Baker asking Dean if ‘this was the big day’. It took the young woman a second to realise what he meant and then she flushed. Small town gossip was alive and well in Brockton. It wasn’t precisely a scandal that a man and woman were living together unmarried but she’d picked up enough hints to guess that token amounts of money were at stake over what happened first – buying rings together or maternity leave.

When she came out, Dean led her to the ground car. An older model, and one that she knew he’d been putting hours into at the workshop he was employed at. While not quite a junker, the car’s appearance didn’t betray the power and reliability of its working systems.

There was a basket in the back-seat as promised – but in the back, under a blanket, were the shapes she recognised as rucksacks. “Dean?” Ellen asked when the doors were closed.

Rafael pulled smoothly away from the curb, not looking aside. “We have to go, Helena.”

“What happened?” Helena Cameron asked, eyes flickering to the roadside, looking for OPD or Krypteria agents.

“It’s not us,” he assured her. “There was a bombing twenty minutes ago, an imperial supply convoy crossing the bridge. Brockton’s the nearest town so…”

Her face paled. “But Mr Baker… Diana, everyone else…?”

“There’s nothing we can do. Roadblocks will be in place everywhere before the hour’s out. We have to move now or we’ll be trapped.”

“But… couldn’t we at least have warned them?”

“You come first,” Rafael told her in a tone that wasn’t quite as flat as he intended.

Helena swallowed. “I’m not worth this.”

“Not worth what?” He glanced aside at her briefly. “Living?”

She saw his fingers were tight around the wheel as they crossed Brockton’s boundaries and he opened up the throttle. “No one wants another Cameron.”

“That’s Njari talking.” Samir Njari was Amaris’ minister for media, head of the organisation responsible for ensuring that the news channels reported favourably upon the Emperor and affairs of state. If the official reports were true, then Amaris was twice the saint that even Helena’s brother had thought him to be.

Brockton would be in the news today, something about how ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ the Amaris Empire had made the denizens of the town pay for their part in the attack on the convoy.

“Diana’s sister is with a resistance group,” Rafael added grimly. “She’s not really ill, after all.”

“She’s not?”

The Federated Suns officer gave her a grim smile. “I wasn’t associated with them, of course, too great a risk, but I kept an eye on locals who might help if we needed them. I don’t know if they were connected higher up the chain but there was some whispering about the idea that some Camerons have escaped Amaris. They seemed to think it was a good thing.”

Helena studied her hands. “What do they think a Cameron can do?” she asked wearily. “I’m a baker, not a soldier! I haven’t even been to college, what sort of leader could I be?”

“I can’t tell you what Prince Davion expects of you,” Rafael told her. “But when we were sent here, he told us there were three reasons to try to save the people we were sent for.”

“Like what?”

“Firstly, it’s a tactic. Everyone we were sent for is someone Amaris would want to have either dead or in his hands, so as long as some of you are kept from him he’ll be furiously diverting efforts to search for you, resources that might otherwise be used to fight Kerensky. And in pursuit of you, he’ll show his true colours to the Hegemony.”

“Like Brockton.”

“Yes, like Brockton. You know what the media’s been claiming, that Kerensky is burning entire worlds for refusing to surrender to him. But with rumours of what Amaris is doing here, who do you think people believe is really committing atrocities?”

Helena nodded slowly. “What else did your Prince say?”

“Secondly, he told us that everyone he sent us for could play a small part in saving the Star League. We can’t save everyone, but the more people who are working to save the League, the better the chances are of averting a larger, wider war.”

“Larger and wider than this?”

“The prince said, and I believe him, that if the Star League falls then all of humanity will face a new age of war, fought with the rage and fury of the fighting in the Periphery. If we can stop that, then we save millions upon millions of lives.”

“That’s hard to imagine.” She shuddered in the seat. Is that what being a ruler is, having to consider such things? Father in heaven, take this cup from me.

“And finally, he told us that while none of you were perfect, nor did you deserve to die for the hatreds and ambitions of Stefan Amaris. That makes protecting you a good and just thing to do, in a universe where it isn’t always clear what’s right or just, so we should take the chance presented to something that’s both.”

“He said that?”

“As near as I remember, that’s his exact words.” The soldier smiled self-disparagingly. “I have a fairly decent memory.”

“Frighteningly so, especially when it comes to household chores.” Until Rafael took her away, Helena had never once had to tidy up after herself, much less clean dishes or laundry. It had been an odd price for anonymity but she’d learned to enjoy being Ellen Davis.

And now Amaris had taken that away from her as well.

.o0O0o.

Charleston, North America
Terra, Terran Hegemony
18 May 2770

Not even the vast trans-oceanic tunnels could carry all the freight that travelled between Terra’s continents. Helena’s tutors had taught her that it was a never-ending struggle to move the necessary goods from where they were made or shipped in to the places that they were wanted by twelve billion citizens.

Goods too large for the tunnels and which didn’t merit the expense of an orbital hop by dropship – or going to destinations not convenient for either – still went by sea.

The sprawling off-shore docks of Charleston formed an artificial reef three kilometres offshore from the historic city. Surface and submersible freight-haulers docked along the outer edge, unlike cruiser liners that received places with a better view of the reclaimed coast.

Rafael had sold the car for cash to a dealer outside Philadelphia who’d asked what even Helena realised were suspiciously few questions. A quick haircut and a change of clothes had sufficed to change their identities to the man’s satisfaction before he rented an air car and flew as far as Atlanta.

Despite the temptation of the busy spaceport, they’d only stayed in the city overnight. Security on flights was far too tight to risk actually trying to board a dropship headed away from Terra, but the flow of people in and out of the city made the city an excellent place to cover their trails.

Rafael had been apologetic that the hotel room had only a single bed. It didn’t bother Helena to share, after three years of sharing a house to share a bed. Sleep hadn’t come easily and occasionally brushing against him didn’t make that easier, but it was at least reassurance that whatever happened she wasn’t alone. There was someone there who cared about her wellbeing, even if it was because his prince told him to.

Hair dye, more clothes… not from their bags this time but a second-hand store. Running them through a public laundry then digging out fresh luggage – harder to find second-hand so Rafael had bought cheap shoulder bags and they’d spent an hour scuffing them up – had taken most of a day.

The train from Atlanta had been overnight to reach here and Helen was feeling the ache of sleeping in a seat as she hauled her bag off the platform. This wasn’t the nicer terminal used by people expecting to embark on one of the liners. The train terminated here, out on the docks, one stop further and the small number of remaining passengers were dressed in hard-wearing waterproofs like those they wore.

“Where now?” she asked.

“Not much further.” He held his bag with an enviable ease. “A little bit of a walk.”

And so they walked along the dock, past what she guessed was the coast guard station – now flying the imperial flag and along the row of ships. Heavy haulers crawled along, barely at walking pace, moving parts of what Helena guessed might be a deep-water mining rig along. Even larger cranes were moving loads on and off the ships, sometimes unprotected machinery and other times crates the size of entire dropships.

“Here we are.” Rafael stopped opposite the dull-red hull of ship already loaded down with two such crates, a third being secured by a dozen men and women.

“Gatcham,” she read off the side. “What does that mean?”

“I haven’t the least notion, but it’s our destination.”

There was a walkway up from the dock to a door part-way up the side of the structure at the rear of the mammoth ship. The door was closed but a knock from Rafael had a young man, around her own age, pull it open.

“Yes?”

“Ian Ralphson and Greta Heller, we’re reporting aboard.”

“Reporting aboard?” the man said blankly. “First I’ve heard about it.”

“Why don’t you check with your captain,” Rafael said patiently.

The door closed and Helena gave her companion a concerned look. He shook his head and leant against the rail. Helena tried to mimic his lack of concern opposite, glancing down occasionally at the water. She hadn’t been near the sea since leaving Unity City.

It took five nerve-wracking minutes for the door to open. This time it was a woman, squatly built with her hair crammed up under a knit cap. “Ian, is it?”

Rafael cracked a smile. “Mike.”

“Shut up and come aboard.” The gruff response defused any momentary pang in Helena at Rafael’s warm – relatively – response to the woman. “Captain’ll see you.”

With the door shut, Mike glared at Rafael. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming here.”

“Limited choices. We almost got caught in a sweep after a resistance cell ran amok.”

“Why here, not Panama?”

“Yuri got picked up there, along with his package. I think that route’s busted.”

“Shit.” The woman looked at Helena. “Sorry, kid.”

Helena gave her a shrug, not sure she was getting an apology for.

Up two steep stairs, Mike gestured to a door. “I better get the load secured so we can get out of harbour before someone does a random check or something. Captain’s in there.” She rapped her knuckles on a door as she set off.

“Come in!”

Helena opened the door and entered cautiously. It was a cramped room, not much more than a bunk bed, the upper bunk crammed with cardboard boxes, a desk and three chairs crammed around it. The young man from earlier occupied the gap between desk and wall – bulkhead? – that was the only way around it, and a middle-aged woman in a woollen jersey was behind it.

“So you’ll be Helena,” the woman said warmly.

With a little shriek, Helena tried to back-pedal only to run into Rafael.

“It’s okay,” he assured her and then looked past her. “Ma’am.”

“Hmm. You’ve been as tight-lipped as Mike is.” She shook her head. “Benjy, go tell your sister that she’ll have a new bunk-mate for the next few weeks. Kristy will be in here with me.”

The young man – Benjy, obviously – gave the box-crammed bunk a dubious look.
“Well caught,” the captain said calmly. “Once you’re done, come back here and help me find places for all that. Out.”

There was an awkward little dance around the door as they made room for Benjy to leave, then the older woman waved them to the chairs. “You look like you could do with some hot chocolate,” she assessed, opening a cabinet to reveal a tiny coffee machine. “Don’t worry, Lady Cameron. I’ve as much, if not more, to lose if we’re caught than you do.”

“Please don’t call me that,” Helena said miserably.

“Ah, security. Yes, my bad there. In my defence, you don’t really look like a Greta. Call me Cynthia DeKirk, that’s what it says on my papers. Actually, call me captain. You’re supposed to be part of my crew, at least until we find a port to stash you.”

Helena nodded. “Yes, captain.”

“They’re all louts in the Federated Suns,” DeKirk added, with a sly look at Rafael. “I should know, I married one of the hicks.”

“Is he… okay, ma’am?”

“I assume so. Amaris would likely make a big fuss in the media if Aaron was killed. He certainly made enough of a fuss about Joan. I feel for her husband wherever he is.” The cup in the coffee maker filled with hot water and Cynthia dropped a tea-spoon into it before passing it over to Helena. “Give it a good stir and then we’ll thrash out what you’ll be doing aboard. Have to have some excuse to add the two of you to the crew. Do you have any useful skills?”

“I’m a baker?” she said tentatively.

“You can cook?” Cynthia brightened immediately. “Oh thank god, I am so sick of being the only one aboard who can do more than heat up a frozen dinner.”

[drakensis]

Novals, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
3 June 2770

Halfway around the globe from Avalon City but conveniently only a few hundred miles from Achernar MechWorks and the network of component manufacturers that fed the Federated Suns’ capital’s military-industrial sector, the new Lycomb facility was burrowed deep underground, the surface facilities just the tip of an iceberg.

“Please extend my condolences to Prince John and his family,” Perry Lycomb asked as he and Thomas Green-Davion sat opposite each other, laboriously checking clause after clause of the contracts they were about to sign.

Lawyers had studied the documentation first, of course. Many times, with the intensity of a major dissertation review. Dozens of changes had been made and then delivered for consideration and dispute by the other party’s experts. But at the end of the day, the entire crux of the deal that enabled this factory to begin operations would be approval from the two men that the documents they signed truly reflected the agreement between House Davion and Lycomb IntroTechnologies.

“I’ll be sure to do so.” This would have been among John’s first duty after a two week vacation in the New Hebrides islands, but fate had conspired otherwise. Ten days into his first holiday in almost five years, the First Prince had been called back the Avalon City – not by political trouble but by something more personal.

His mother Janet had suffered a sudden stroke overnight. At only seventy-five, it had been unexpected and by the time a dropship had dragged John back to the capital, it was too late for him to do more than set up a state funeral – to the private clucking of high society, whose finely-bred sensibilities had noted that as her husband hadn’t been First Prince himself, Janet wasn’t entitled to be treated as Princess Dowager.

That clucking was very very quiet, though.

At last, satisfied that the contract matched both his own recollection and the electronic copy beside him, Green-Davion signed the necessary block on the final page, confirming his assent on behalf of the First Prince and the Federated Suns.

It took a moment for the CEO to catch up and the two men exchanged the signed documents, beginning a second detailed study. In many ways it was stupid, painstaking and time consuming, but at the same time it was the one thing that could be counted on – because beyond the courts and legal procedure, the worth of the contract relied upon the honour of the men signing it and only an abject fool would put his name and word to a contract that he only had an adversary’s word, however cordial, for the content of.

“I’m glad that Prince Davion agreed to the clause about the SLDF preferential access,” Lycomb added as he checked his own copy. “We could have come to an agreement without it, but with General Kerensky in so much need of war material, some of the shareholders were quite insistent.”

“His highness is deeply committed to the cause of the Star League,” Green-Davion pointed out. “The exact wording of the clause might be considered a rebuke to the other Lords on the Star League Council.”

The executive ran his finger down the paragraph in question. “‘Insomuch as the Federated Suns is a loyal member state of the Star League, House Davion yields the right of refusal over all military production by Lycomb-Davion to the Star League Defense Force conditional on second refusal at the same prices is made available to the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns and under no circumstances to any agency or realm which may be deemed hostile to the interests of the Federated Suns.’ Oh yes, I can see how they might feel slighted. Still, it’s odd given how insistent he was on obtaining access to heavy fighters for the AFFS. He won’t get a single Stuka until the war is over, or so I suspect. Possibly not for years afterwards.”

“We’ll see.” Green-Davion turned the page. “His highness takes the long view and since you agreed to the security clauses, I think he feels that he can at least be assured that the Lycomb-Davion subsidiary will remain in operation even if hostilities should begin again around Demeter.”

“Oh surely they will not. After all, Chancellor Liao has thrown her support behind General Kerensky, so relations between the Federated Suns and the Capellans should thaw now that there’s a common cause.”

“One can always hope,” the field marshal agreed blandly. It was about as realistic as expecting that the entire SDS network of Terra would suffer a crippling and irreversible breakdown and start blockading the world for Kerensky in his opinion, but a warming of relations with Sian was at least theoretically possible.

This time the two men finished at around the same time and they signed their names, completing the contracts, together.

“That’s that, then.” Lycomb turned to his aide. “Issue the instructions to Demeter to start shipping the tooling here.”

Green-Davion consulted his watch. “Plenty of time to get today’s transmission batch,” he noted.

“Yes, the schedule works out nicely.” The other man offered his hand. “Twelve months to get a basic Stuka into production, maybe another six for the SLDF’s requested modifications. I imagine they’ll take the K5 models until we’re up to speed but if General Kerensky prefers to wait then the first runs will be there for the AFFS next July.”

They shook hands and Green-Davion put his copy away in his attaché case, handing it to his aide. “A lot can happen in a year, we’ll see how things stand. I doubt you’ll have issues selling Stukas, whoever the buyer.”

“Very true. Will you be going back to Avalon City today?”

“I’m catching the nine o’clock sub-orbital.” Which would leave him in New Avalon in the mid-morning, but it wasn’t as if he kept regular hours anyway.

“Perhaps I could offer you an early dinner then? My wife’s just expressed satisfaction that our house here is ready to entertain.”

The field marshal considered. “I’d be delighted,” he said at last. “I should make one last inspection of the security facilities before I leave, but if you’re sure it’s not an imposition…”

“Nothing of the kind.” The executive reached for his phone. “If we fly out of the heliport here at four we can eat at five and have you at the drop-port with time to spare.”

“I’ll place myself in your hands then.” Leaving the arrangements in the executive’s hands, Green-Davion left the office and looked at his attaché. “Hand that off to the courier and be back by four. Catch a nap if you have time, jet-lag’s got a way of sneaking up on you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The security facility on site was what John had insisted upon in the contract – in case of any attack by terrorists such as the one that had rocked Demeter ten years before the entire site was ringed by intricate sensors. The command and control for this was buried beneath what seemed like simply another entrance to the underground complex, but in order to ensure that they were no threat to the technological secrets that Lycomb had brought to the jointly-owned subsidiary, the subterranean levels of the security facility didn’t interlink at all with the firm’s structures.

So much the better, thought Green-Davion as he was logged past the security checkpoints. The vehicle bays that housed the on-site tank company and the barracks for their infantry counterparts were only a tiny portion of the whole. The entire complex had been dug out by a construction company wholly owned by House Davion and the levels Lycomb-Davion would occupy were little more than half of their true extent.

An elevator carried the Field Marshal down to another check-point where he had to switch to a second elevator that would carry him the rest of the way. It would make regular deliveries of supplies difficult but the permanent staff here wasn’t numerous, merely very carefully chosen.

Behind the final checkpoint, he entered a corridor that circled the hidden facility buried under Lycomb-Davion’s new factory. Within the circle were the life support systems, not just air circulation but also living quarters for the scientists.

On the outside of the circle were the workshops and laboratories. The first door he came to was open and through it he could see a heavy industrial exo-skeleton, something that weighed almost as much as a small ground-car, laid out on its back as what he recognised as oxy-nitrogen bottles were attached. “Making a start already?”

Startled, the coverall-clad man overseeing the work looked over and then quickly moved over to Green-Davion, closing the door behind him. “Everyone’s very eager to begin, sir.”

“Even with the risks, Doctor Cole?”

“Pff.” The engineer saved his hand dismissively. “The previous incidence was because the teams were too intent on copying the Hegemony’s work slavishly. With so many parts and components being obtained that mirrored the actual pre-production it’s no surprise that their purpose was identified. What we’re doing is something new, something original that even the Hegemony hasn’t thought to try.”

Forty-five years before, when the Hegemony first completed their Nighthawk powered armour, they’d responded to attempts by the member-states to covertly duplicate their work with a series of commando raids, eradicating both the espionage cells responsible for stealing data and sample components and the labs working to extrapolate from this up to a completed copy. To the best of Green-Davion’s knowledge, no state had escaped that purge or dared to protest at being caught trying to circumvent the Technology-Transfer laws.

“The Hegemony, you see, they worked up.” Cole gestured upwards. “Starting from then human form, then building outwards with a new generation of exo-skeletal systems, more compact than anything seen before. We though, we are building down. Taking an exo-skeleton large enough to carry the armour and weapons required and then scaling them down into an integrated whole. What will their spies report? That the Federated Suns is purchasing more parts for the exo-skeletons already used for thousands of tasks across the Suns? The shock they will experience!” He shook his head. “Truthfully, Field Marshal, the vast majority of supplies we need will be mere rounding errors to the AFFS’ existing purchases of the kind. The state of the art has moved along over the last two generations.”

“Well, I hope you’re right. I don’t want be told one morning that everyone here has been found dead with a rat shoved down their throats.”

That thought seemed to shake the doctor of engineering a little, but he recovered his confidence almost immediately. “His highness’ concept for heavier battle armour, suitable for the tunnel fighting inside a Castle Brian, is brilliant. We will bring it to fruition for him.” The man paused. “The research is not the risk, you understand. It is when you start commissioning the full scale manufacture of components that we can scratch-build for our prototypes. That is when we might be revealed.”

“We have ways and means,” Green-Davion assured him. “Just get us to that stage, Doctor, and the Federated Suns will have a new weapon not shared with any other state. Not even with the SLDF.”

.o0O0o.

Ashanti, Small World
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
29 August 2770

There were both advantages and disadvantages to having a company under her command now, Alexandra Davion thought. On the one hand she had more tools to deal with a problem. On the other she tended to be given bigger problems to deal with.

“It’s not that we can’t take them out,” Leftenant Martin explained a little sheepishly from his cockpit. “But we probably can’t take them all out without a lot of collateral damage.”

“Yeah, good call.” She was currently on a rooftop with a monocular unfolded so she could look at the current problem without getting any closer.

The issue were six industrial Mechs, each sporting cobbled together weapon packs. As a threat, she was fairly sure her infantry could take them out without any further support but that would take time and assumed that none of the Republican hold-outs were inclined to turn their weapons upon the school they were outside of.

Or for that matter, just missing a target and firing into one of the other buildings nearby by accident. The light commerce and residential buildings wouldn’t stand up too well to even light weapons fire and she doubted that the conversions had military grade targeting systems.

“The good news is that they don’t have fusion reactors. Even if they brew up they’ll likely just burn themselves, not everything within twenty metres. The bad news is that making them brew up will take a good bit of damage.” She closed up the monocular and started wriggling back out of view. “You did the right thing, Leftenant. Charging in with your ‘Mechs would have got a lot of civilians killed. Because of your restraint we have the chance to minimise those risks.”

Martin’s lance had been attached to her company as part of a general dispersion of the Fifty-Sixth Avalon Hussars to support garrisons all across the continent. Given the regiment’s inexperience – only formed up five years ago and pulled together from academy graduates plus a small cadre – they’d showed surprising professionalism. Perhaps they’d been caught before they could pick up bad habits.

“Ideally we want to pull them down the hill,” she mused. “That would mean the slope would backstop any stray shots. We probably can’t get them all down there but even if we were down to just four of them then your ‘Mechs could manhandle them out of the way.”

“Then we need some sort of bait?” the leftenant asked.

“Yeah, something that looks really pathetic but at the same time appealing. A really juicy target for a bunch of terrorist stay-behinds.”

Behind the cover she saw Sammy and Jack exchange looks. “Captain, that sounds like you have a really terrible idea,” the man asserted.

“What does?” she asked innocently.

“That tone of voice,” Sammy told her.

Danny fiddled with his shooting glasses. “Maybe if an APC went out with an officer on it. We could get a bullhorn – I mean, it the APC would have to be pretty quick getting away but if something runs it’s instinctive to chase and…”

“Danny, shut up.”

“Now Sammy, that’s unreasonable,” Alexandra told him pleasantly. “I think it’s a very good idea and I know just the officer who’d be irresistibly tempting to a bunch of terrorists.

Jack smacked the flat of his hand against the younger jump trooper’s helmet. “Now see what you’ve done.”

“Leftenant Martin, we’re going to try pulling some of the ‘Mechs down and into a fire trap for Leftenant Aylesbury’s platoon. As soon as Aylesbury opens fire, your lance is to get up close and force them away from the school. Make sure they don’t fire up into the air – lord only knows where the ordnance would come down. Can you do that?”

The younger man sounded nervous. “Probably? I can’t guarantee…”

“Okay. I’ll take probably for this. First rule of battle is that things go wrong, but sometimes you need to take a chance.”

Alexandra jumped down from the roof, firing a short burst from her jet pack to manage her descent. Hitting the ground with the familiar shock that her knees did not enjoy, she crossed to where her APCs were parked along with her fire support, in the form of Aylesbury’s platoon.

“Brubaker!” she called, smacking the hatch of her command APC with her comm-gauntlet. “Find me a bullhorn. Leftenant Aylesbury! Got a job for you.”

“What do you want us to do, Captain?”

“We’re going to draw some of those ‘Mechs down away from the school. When they’re low enough for the slope to backstop your shooting, I want you to pop out and hammer then. How does that sound?”

“How many ‘Mechs are you talking about?”

“Depends how tempting I can make myself a target.”

“So all of them?”

“It’s adorable how highly you think of me, Leftenant. I’d settle for two but three seems like a better bet.”

“Three of those?” Aylesbury considered the direction of the school, as if he could see the industrial ‘Mechs through the building. “We should be able to drop them fairly fast, but it means getting them lined up.”

“Yeah, this could be messy,” she admitted. “But I really don’t want to give them time to get creative up there.”

He nodded. “You’re the boss.”

“Right, get to it.”

When she got to the APC, Brubaker was leaning on the side, holding out a bullhorn for her. “What’s the plan, captain?”

“We’re going to go out there and I’m going to demand their surrender.”

“Just our whole company?” he asked dubiously.

“No no, just you and me.”

“Ma’am, have you been taking any special medicine?”

“Uh… no?”

“Perhaps something could be prescribed? Because this sounds like the sort of plan that gets you shot by Rimjobs and me shot by a firing squad.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. No court martial in the AFFS would condemn you for letting an officer go into harm’s way,” she told the corporal. “Now mount up and drive out there so I can tell them off.”

With a groan he climbed into the driving compartment of the APC and Alexandra opened up the cupola, standing up in it with the bullhorn in her hands. The engine spun up and shortly the four-wheeled APC was in motion, moving up to end of the street facing the school.

“Turn right at the end,” Alexandra ordered. “If they start after us, head along the street and go for the intersection at the end.”

“It’d be faster to go for cover.”

“Brubaker!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied, she raised the bullhorn. It was obvious that that the ‘Mech’s drivers had spotted her. Two were swinging weapons around to bear. “This is Captain Davion of the AFFS,” she declared, words booming out up towards the school and the terrorists threatening it. “Power down your ‘Mechs and surrender. I repeat, this is Captain Alexandra Davion. Surrender immediately or face the consequences.”

Whatever the Mechwarriors had been expecting, this clearly wasn’t it. Even their improvised ‘Mechs were individually more than a match for one APC – and there were six of them. One of them had a loudspeaker of their own. “How about you park that heap and you surrender?” he suggested.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I am the First Prince’s cousin,” she declared with the maximum ‘noble hauteur’ she could muster in her voice. “I suggest that you cease resistance lest you face severe consequences.”

While she couldn’t actually hear them discuss that – they did have decent security on their comms – she could pretty much imagine what they were thinking. Threatening school children would make a media splash but it was also something that would never be forgiven. A royal hostage though, someone even senior officers the SLDF might not be willing to risk…

The Rim Worlders came from the far side of the Inner Sphere. They might just possibly be aware that military service was all but obligatory within House Davion, but it was unlikely they knew that special privilege for members of the family was expressly prohibited under AFFS regulations.

One ‘Mech started down the slope.

Alexandra hammered her fist on the hatch. “Brubaker, hit it!” She kept her eyes on the ‘Mechs at the top. Come on, come on, one more…

The fact she was now in flight seemed to spur them into action and another pair of industrial Mechs – both modified construction ‘Mechs - started scrambling down the hill, cutting at an angle to intercept her. They were slow, lumbering beasts though. An APC could work up a very respectable speed on roads, especially in a straight line. Only because Brubaker was still picking up speed would they have a chance and…

The world seemed to explode around her. Alexandra dropped inside the hatch, instinctively covering her head as Aylesbury’s platoon opened fire.

While the four ‘Mechs of Martin’s lance added great mobility and flexibility to her company, the firepower came from a platoon of heavy tanks. At point-blank range within the streets, it was hard to imagine anything more deadly than the 18.5cm autocannon and each of the Alacorn Mk IV tanks had three of them in the turret.

Each of the tanks had focused on one of the ‘Mechs with the first down the hill unfortunate enough to receive the attention of two of the Alacorns. BattleMechs of the same size, covered in military-grade armour and multiply redundant control systems would have been crippled by the hits they took and at the point-blank ranges of street-fighting, only two of the twelve shots fired had missed.

The three ‘Mechs fell almost as one and jump packs roared to life as one of Alexandra’s platoons moved in to check the cockpits.

Having assured herself that despite the relatively close passage of the shells from one tank that she was in fact alive, Alexandra looked out again, this time up the hill.

One of the Industrial Mechs had crashed down the slope face first, a Phoenix Hawk sat on its back. Only on a second glance showed her that the BattleMech’s foot had become jammed into the back protection of the lumber ‘Mech. The Mechwarrior had apparently attempted a flying kick and succeeded in an inconvenient fashion.

A second industrial ‘Mech descended the slope in even less control – two of the Phoenix Hawks had seized it, one on each arm, and more or less thrown it away from the school. Weapon packs and other poorly secured components broke away as the ‘Mech rolled down onto the road at the bottom. Given the distorted shape of the cockpit, Alexandra doubted that the man or woman inside would be predisposed to fight – although if they were, the Alacorns were moving up and would take care of the matter.

There was a rush of missiles and Alexandra snapped her head around to look up the slope. The last of the terrorists was being wrestled away by Leftenant Martin’s Phoenix Hawk, but it still faced the school and the pilot had apparently concluded he had nothing to lose. SRMs spat out from the pack on his shoulder and detonated against the cockpit of the medium ‘Mech only metres away.

The Phoenix Hawk seemed to crouch and then its jump jets roared to life, the blast of their fire scorching the grass. With the ‘Mech still gripping the industrial ‘Mech they couldn’t achieve lift-off, but that wasn’t the goal. Instead the pair of ‘Mechs rocketed down the slope, the Phoenix Hawk spinning up and over the digger ‘Mech as it slowly lost its grip.

When the two crashed down, the elbow of the Phoenix Hawk’s left arm was speared through the terrorist cockpit, but Martin’s own cockpit had clearly also been blown open by the missiles.

“Get a medic to Leftenant Martin!” Alexandra shouted. And then, hating herself for the ruthless practicality of the thought, “And cut me a BattleROM of that.” Footage of an AFFS Mechwarrior taking hits to protect a school from a terror cell’s weapons would undercut the remaining pro-Amaris sentiment on Small World with rare effect she thought.

[Sir Chaos]

I take it that this "Cynthia DeKirk" is Aaron de Chavillier´s wife?

[PsihoKekec]

And the kids.

[SCC]

Would I be wrong to guess that as the FedSuns this working on creating other weights of BA, the previous post that had them working on duplicating SL tech also has them expanding upon it? Wonder how General Kerensky would react to FS 'Mechs carrying Ultra/20's showing up before Terra falls.

[idea weenie]

Would I be wrong to guess that as the FedSuns this working on creating other weights of BA, the previous post that had them working on duplicating SL tech also has them expanding upon it? Wonder how General Kerensky would react to FS 'Mechs carrying Ultra/20's showing up before Terra falls.

Pity it was before they were invented or you could have (dead) Davion suggesting the RAC/5 instead. Unless the theoretical concept was proposed and he heard of it?

So you'd have the following battlefield exchange:
Amaris forces (using regular AC): Boom, boom, boom

Kerensky forces (UAC): boom-boom-boom-boom

FedSuns (RAC): B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b (a slower brrrrrrrt) -clunk (it jams)

[SCC]

Nope, too late, first prototype is 3060. However the first prototype coolant pod is produced in '49, so he should know about that, and XXL engines are a possibility (First Prototype is '55). I'm also surprised that they/drakensis used an ICE powerplant in the Culervin over a FCE.